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£Ci)e  ftifcrrstoe  Ilibrarp  for  looting  people 

NUMBER  1 
THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

BY  JOHN  FISKE 


THE 


WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE 


BY 

JOHN   FISKE 


BOSTON    AND    NEW    YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN   AND   COMPANY 
PTEBH,  CambriDge 
891 


Copyright,  1889, 
BY  JOHN  FISKEL 

All  rights  reserved. 


SIXTH  EDITION. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  II.  0.  Iloughton  &  Company. 


CONTENTS. 


I.  INTRODUCTION 1 

II.  THE  COLONIES  IN  1750        .*....          4 

III.  THE  FRENCH  WARS,    AND    THE    FIRST    PLAN  OF 

UNION 26 

IV.  THE  STAMP  ACT,   AND  THE  REVENUE  LAWS     .        39 
V.   THE  CRISIS 78 

VI.  THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  THE  CENTRE        .        .        .      104 

VII.   THE  FRENCH  ALLIANCE 144 

VIII.   BIRTH  OF  THE  NATION 182 


NOTE.  —  The  maps  are  used   by  permission  of,  and  by  ar 
rangement  with,  Messrs.  Ginn  &  Company. 


M78O953 


PREFACE. 


THIS  little  book  does  not  contain  the  substance 
of  the  lectures  on  the  American  Revolution  which 
I  have  delivered  in  so  many  parts  of  the  United 
States  since  1883.  Those  lectures,  when  com 
pleted  and  published,  will  make  quite  a  detailed 
narrative  ;  this  book  is  but  a  sketch.  It  is  hoped 
that  it  may  prove  useful  to  the  higher  classes  in 
schools,  as  well  as  to  teachers.  When  I  was  a 
boy  I  should  have  been  glad  to  get  hold  of  a  brief 
account  of  the  War  for  Independence  that  would 
have  suggested  answers  to  some  of  the  questions 
that  used  to  vex  me.  Was  the  conduct  of  the 
British  government,  in  driving  the  Americans  into 
rebellion,  merely  wanton  aggression,  or  was  it  not 
rather  a  bungling  attempt  to  solve  a  political 
problem  which  really  needed  to  be  solved  ?  Why 
were  New  Jersey  and  the  Hudson  river  so  impor 
tant?  Why  did  the  British  armies  make  South 
Carolina  their  chief  objective  point  after  New 


VI  PREFACE. 

York  ?  Or  how  did  Cornwallis  happen  to  be  at 
Yorktown  when  Washington  made  such  a  long  leap 
and  pounced  upon  him  there  ?  And  so  on.  Such 
questions  the  old-fashioned  text-books  not  only 
did  not  try  to  answer,  they  did  not  even  recognize 
their  existence.  As  to  the  large  histories,  they 
of  course  include  so  many  details  that  it  requires 
maturity  of  judgment  to  discriminate  between  the 
facts  that  are  cardinal  and  those  that  are  merely 
incidental.  When  I  give  lectures  to  schoolboys 
and  schoolgirls,  I  observe  that  a  reference  to 
causes  and  effects  always  s.eems  to  heighten  the 
interest  of  the  story.  I  therefore  offer  them  this 
little  book,  not  as  a  rival  but  as  an  aid  to  the 
ordinary  text-book.  I  am  aware  that  a  narrative 
so  condensed  must  necessarily  suffer  from  the 
omission  of  many  picturesque  and  striking  de 
tails.  The  world  is  so  made  that  one  often  has  to 
lose  a  little  in  one  direction  in  order  to  gain  some 
thing  in  another.  This  book  is  an  experiment. 
If  it  seems  to  answer  its  purpose,  I  may  follow  it 
with  others,  treating  other  portions  of  American 
history  in  similar  fashion. 
CAMBRIDGE,  February  11,  1889. 


THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE. 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

SINCE  the  year  1875  we  have  witnessed,  in 
many  parts  of  the  United  States,  public  proces 
sions,  meetings,  and  speeches  in  commemoration 
of  the  hundredth  anniversary  of  some  important 
event  in  the  course  of  our  struggle  for  national 
independence.  This  series  of  centennial  celebra 
tions,  which  has  been  of  great  value  in  stimulat 
ing  American  patriotism  and  awakening  through 
out  the  country  a  keen  interest  in  American 
history,  will  naturally  come  to  an  end  in  1889. 
The  close  of  President  Cleveland's  term  of  office 
marks  the  close  of  the  first  century  of  the  gov 
ernment  under  which  we  live,  which  dates  from 
the  inauguration  of  President  Washington  on  the 
balcony  of  the  Federal  building  in  Wall  street, 
New  York,  on  the  30th  of  April,  1789.  It  was 
on  that  memorable  day  that  the  American  Rev 
olution  may  be  said  to  have  been  completed. 
The  Declaration  of  Independence  in  1776  de 
tached  the  American  people  from  the  supreme 


THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

government  to  which  they  had  hitherto  owed 
allegiance,  and  it  was  not  until  Washington's  in 
auguration  in  1789  that  the  supreme  government 
to  which  we  owe  allegiance  to-day  was  actually 
put  in  operation.  The  period  of  thirteen  years 
included  between  these  two  dates  was  strictly  a 
revolutionary  period,  during  which  it  was  more  or 
less  doubtful  where  the  supreme  authority  over 
the  United  States  belonged.  First,  it  took  the 
fighting  and  the  diplomacy  of  the  revolutionary 
war  to  decide  that  this  supreme  authority  be 
longed  in  the  United  States  themselves,  and  not 
•  in  the  government  of  Great  Britain  ;  and  then 
after  the  war  was  ended,  more  than  five  years  of 
sore  distress  and  anxious  discussion  had  elapsed 
before  the  American  people  succeeded  in  setting 
up  a  new  government  that  was  strong  enough  to 
make  itself  obeyed  at  home  and  respected  abroad. 
It  is  the  story  of  this  revolutionary  period, 
ending  in  1789,  that  we  have  here  to  relate  in  its 
principal  outlines.  When  we  stand  upon  the 
crest  of  a  lofty  hill  and  look  about  in  all  direc 
tions  over  the  landscape,  we  can  often  detect  re 
lations  between  distant  points  which  we  had  not 
before  thought  of  together.  While  we  tarried  in 
the  lowland,  we  could  see  blue  peaks  rising  here 
and  there  against  the  sky,  and  follow  babbling 
brooks  hither  and  thither  through  the  forest.  It 
was  more  homelike  down  there  than  on  the  hill 
top,  for  in  each  gnarled  tree,  in  every  moss-grown 


INTRODUCTION.  3 

boulder,  in  every  wayside  flower,  we  had  a  friend 
that  was  near  to  us ;  but  the  general  bearings 
of  things  may  well  have  escaped  our  notice.  In 
climbing  to  our  lonely  vantage-ground,  while  the 
familiar  scenes  fade  from  sight,  there  are  gradu 
ally  unfolded  to  us  those  connections  between  crag 
and  meadow  and  stream  that  make  the  life  and 
meaning  of  the  whole.  We  learn  the  "  lay  of  the 
land/'  and  become,  in  a  humble  way,  geographers. 
So  in  the  history  of  men  and  nations,  while  we 
remain  immersed  in  the  study  of  personal  inci 
dents  and  details,  as  what  such  a  statesman  said 
or  how  many  men  were  killed  in  such  a  battle,  we 
may  quite  fail  to  understand  what  it  was  all  about, 
and  we  shall  be  sure  often  to  misjudge  men's 
characters  and  estimate  wrongly  the  importance 
of  many  events.  For  this  reason  we  cannot  clearly 
see  the  meaning  of  the  history  of  our  own  times. 
The  facts  are  too  near  us ;  we  are  down  among 
them,  like  the  man  who  could  not  see  the  forest 
because  there  were  so  many  trees.  But  when  we 
look  back  over  a  long  interval  of  years,  we  can 
survey  distant  events  and  personages  like  points 
in  a  vast  landscape  and  begin  to  discern  the  mean 
ing  of  it  all.  In  this  way  we  come  to  see  that 
history  is  full  of  lessons  for  us.  Very  few  things 
have  happened  in  past  ages  with  which  our  pres 
ent  welfare  is  not  in  one  way  or  another  concerned. 
Few  things  have  happened  in  any  age  more, in 
teresting  or  more  important  than  the  American 
Revolution. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE   COLONIES  IN   1750. 

IT  is  always  difficult  in  history  to  mark  the 
beginning  and  end  of  a  period.  Events  keep 
rushing  on  and  do  not  pause  to  be  divided  into 
chapters  ;  or,  in  other  words,  in  the  history  which 
really  takes  place,  a  new  chapter  is  always  begin 
ning  long  before  the  old  one  is  ended.  The  di 
visions  we  make  when  we  try  to  describe  it  are 
merely  marks  that  we  make  for  our  own  conven 
ience.  In  telling  the  story  of  the  American  Revo 
lution  we  must  stop  somewhere,  and  the  inaugu 
ration  of  President  Washington  is  a  very  proper 
place.  We  must  also  begin  somewhere,  but  it  is 
quite  clear  that  it  will  not  do  to  begin  with  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  in  July,  1776,  or 
even  with  the  midnight  ride  of  Paul  Revere  in 
April,  1775.  For  if  we  ask  what  caused  that 
"hurry  of  hoofs  in  a  village  street,"  and  what 
brought  together  those  five-and-fifty  statesmen  at 
Philadelphia,  we  are  not  simply  led  back  to  the 
Boston  Tea-Party,  and  still  further  to  the  Stamp 
Act,  but  we  find  it  necessary  to  refer  to  events 
tha^  happened  more  than  a  century  before  the 
Revolution  can  properly  be  said  to  have  begun. 


THE   COLONIES  IN  1750.  5 

Indeed,  if  we  were  going  to  take  a  very  wide 
view  of  the  situation,  and  try  to  point  out  its  re 
lations  to  the  general  history  of  mankind,  we 
should  have  to  go  back  many  hundreds  of  years 
and  not  only  cross  the  ocean  to  the  England  of 
King  Alfred,  but  keep  on  still  further  to  the 
ancient  market-places  of  Rome  and  Athens,  and 
even  to  the  pyramids  of  Egypt ;  and  in  all  this 
long  journey  through  the  ages  we  should  not  be 
merely  gratifying  an  idle  curiosity,  but  at  every 
step  of  the  way  could  gather  sound  practical  les 
sons,  useful  in  helping  us  to  vote  intelligently  at 
the  next  election  for  mayor  of  the  city  in  which 
we  live  or  for  president  of  the  United  States. 

We  are  not  now,  however,  about  to  start  on  any 
such  long  journey.  It  is  a  much  nearer  and 
narrower  view  of  the  American  Revolution  that 
we  wish  to  get.  There  are  many  points  from 
which  we  might  start,  but  we  must  at  any  rate 
choose  a  point  several  years  earlier  than  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  People  are  very 
apt  to  leave  out  of  sight  the  "good  old  colony 
times "  and  speak  of  our  country  as  scarcely 
more  than  a  hundred  years  old.  Sometimes  we 
hear  the  presidency  of  George  Washington  spoken 
of  as  part  of  "  early  American  history ;  "  but  we 
ought  not  to  forget  that  when  Washington  was 
born  the  commonwealth  of  Virginia  was  already 
<>n<>  hundred  and  twenty-five  years  old.  The  first 
of  Massachusetts  was  born  three  cen- 


6  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

turies  ago,  in  1588,  the  year  of  the  Spanish  Ar 
mada.  Suppose  we  take  the  period  of  282  years 
between  the  English  settlement  of  Virginia  and 
the  inauguration  of  President  Benjamin  Harrison, 
and  divide  it  in  the  middle.  That  gives  us  the 
The  haif-way  vear  1748  as  the  half -way  station  in  the 
AmeSi;  history  of  the  American  people.  There 
were  just  as  many  years  of  continuous 
American  history  before  1748  as  there  have  been 
since  that  date.  That  year  was  famous  for  the 
treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle,  which  put  an  end  to  a 
war  between  England  and  France  that  had  lasted 
five  years.  That  war  had  been  waged  in  America 
as  well  as  in  Europe,  and  American  troops  had 
played  a  brilliant  part  in  it.  There  was  now  a 
brief  lull,  soon  to  be  followed  by  another  and 
greater  war  between  the  two  mighty  rivals,  and  it 
was  in  the  course  of  this  latter  war  that  some  of 
the  questions  were  raised  which  presently  led  to 
the  American  Revolution.  Let  us  take  the  oc 
casion  of  this  lull  in  the  storm  to  look  over  the 
American  world  and  see  what  were  the  circum 
stances  likely  to  lead  to  the  throwing  off  of  the 
British  government  by  the  thirteen  colonies,  and 
to  their  union  under  a  federal  government  of 
their  own  making. 

In  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  there 
were  four  New  England  colonies.  Massachusetts 
extended  her  sway  over  Maine,  and  the  Green 
Mountain  territory  was  an  uninhabited  wilder- 


THE   COLONIES  IN  1750.  1 

ness,  to  which  New  York  and  New  Hampshire 
alike  laid  claim.  The  four  commonwealths  of 
New  Hampshire,  Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  and 
Rhode  Island  had  all  been  in  existence,  under 
one  form  or  another,  for  more  than  a  century. 
The  men  who  were  in  the  prime  of  life  there  in 
1750  were  the  great-grandsons  and  great-great- 
grandsons  of  the  men  who  crossed  the  ocean  be 
tween  1620  and  1640  and  settled  New  England. 
Scarcely  two  men  in  a  hundred  were  of  other  than 
English  blood.  About  one  in  a  hundred  could 
say  that  his  family  came  from  Scotland  or  the 
north  of  Ireland  ;  one  in  five  hundred  may  have 
been  the  grandchild  of  a  Huguenot. 
Upon  religious  and  political  questions  £ 
these  people  thought  very  much  alike.  mes- 
Extreme  poverty  was  almost  unknown,  and  there 
were  but  few  who  could  not  read  and  write.  As 
a  rule  every  head  of  a  family  owned  the  house  in 
which  he  lived  and  the  land  which  supported  him. 
There  were  no  cities ;  and  from  Boston,  which 
was  a  town  with  16,000  inhabitants,  down  to  the 
smallest  settlement  in  the  White  Mountains,  the 
government  was  carried  on  by  town-meetings  at 
which  almost  any  grown-up  man  could  be  present 
and  speak  and  vote.  Except  upon  the  sea-coast 
nearly  all  the  people  lived  upon  farms  ;  but  all 
along  the  coast  were  many  who  lived  by  fishing 
and  by  building  ships,  and  in  the  towns  dwelt 
many  merchants  grown  rich  by  foreign  trade.  In 


8  THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

those  days  Massachusetts  was  the  richest  of  the 
thirteen  colonies,  and  had  a  larger  population 
than  any  other  except  Virginia.  Connecticut  was 
then  more  populous  than  New  York  ;  and  when 
the  four  New  England  commonwealths  acted  to 
gether  —  as  was  likely  to  be  the  case  in  time  of 
danger  —  they  formed  the  strongest  military  power 
on  the  American  continent. 

Among  what  we  now  call  southern  states  there 
were  two  that  in  1750  were  more  than  a  hundred 
years  old.  These  were  Virginia  and  Maryland. 
The  people  of  these  commonwealths,  like  those  of 
New  England,  had  lived  together  in  America  long 
enough  to  become  distinctively  Americans.  Both 
New  Englander  and  Virginian  had  had  time  to 
forget  their  family  relationships  with  the  kindred 
Virginia  and  ^e^  behind  so  long  ago  in  England  ; 
Maryland,  though  there  were  many  who  did  not 
forget  it,  and  in  our  time  scholars  have  by  re 
search  recovered  many  of  the  links  that  had  been 
lost  from  memory.  The  white  people  of  Virginia 
were  as  purely  English  as  those  of  Connecticut  or 
Massachusetts.  But  society  in  Virginia  was  very 
different  from  society  in  New  England.  The 
wealth  of  Virginia  consisted  chiefly  of  tobacco, 
which  was  raised  by  negro  slaves.  People  lived 
far  apart  from  each  other  on  great  plantations, 
usually  situated  near  the  navigable  streams  of 
which  that  country  has  so  many.  Most  of  the 
great  planters  had  easy  access  to  private  wharves, 


THE   COLONIES  IN  1750.  9 

where  their  crops  could  be  loaded  on  ships  and 
sent  directly  to  England  in  exchange  for  all  sorts 
of  goods.  Accordingly  it  was  but  seldom  that 
towns  grew  up  as  centres  of  trade.  Each  planta 
tion  was  a  kind  of  little  world  in  itself.  There 
were  no  town-meetings,  as  the  smallest  political 
division  was  the  division  into  counties ;  but  there 
were  county-meetings  quite  vigorous  with  politi 
cal  life.  Of  the  leading  county  families  a  great 
many  were  descended  from  able  and  distinguished 
Cavaliers  or  King's-men  who  had  come  over 
from  England  during  the  ascendency  of  Oliver 
Cromwell.  Skill  in  the  management  of  public 
affairs  was  hereditary  in  such  families,  and  dur 
ing  our  revolutionary  period  Virginia  produced 
more  great  leaders  than  any  of  the  other  colonies. 
There  were  yet  two  other  American  common 
wealths  that  in  1750  were  more  than  a  hundred 
years  old.  These  were  New  York  and  little  Dela 
ware,  which  for  some  time  was  a  kind  of  append 
age,  first  to  New  York,  afterward  to  Pennsyl 
vania.  But  there  was  one  important  respect  in 
which  these  two  colonies  were  different  alike  from 
New  England  and  from  Virginia.  Their  popu 
lation  was  far  from  being  purely  Eng 
lish.  Delaware  had  been  first  settled  by  and  Deia- 
Swedes,  New  York  by  Dutchmen  ;  and 
the  latter  colony  had  drawn  its  settlers  from  al 
most  every  part  of  western  and  central  Europe. 
A  man  might  travel  from  Penobscot  bay  to  the 


10  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

Harlem  river  without  hearing  a  syllable  in  any 
other  tongue  than  English  ;  but  in  crossing  Man 
hattan  island  he  could  listen,  if  he  chose,  to  more 
than  a  dozen  languages.  There  was  almost  as 
much  diversity  in  opinions  about  religious  and 
political  matters  as  there  was  in  the  languages  in 
which  they  were  expressed.  New  York  was  an 
English  community  in  so  far  as  it  had  been  for 
more  than  eighty  years  under  an  English  govern 
ment,  but  hardly  in  any  other  sense.  Accordingly 
we  shall  find  New  York  in  the  revolutionary  pe 
riod  less  prompt  and  decided  in  action  than  Massa 
chusetts  and  Virginia.  In  population  New  York 
ranked  only  seventh  among  the  thirteen  colonies  ; 
but  in  its  geographical  position  it  was  the  most 
important  of  all.  It  was  important  commercially 
because  the  Mohawk  and  Hudson  rivers  formed  a 
direct  avenue  for  the  fur-trade  from  the  region  of 
the  great  lakes  to  the  finest  harbour  on  all  the 
Atlantic  coast.  In  a  military  sense  it  was  impor 
tant  for  two  reasons  ;  first,  because  the  Mohawk 
valley  was  the  home  of  the  most  powerful  confed 
eracy  ol  Indians  on  the  continent,  the  steady  al 
lies  of  the  English  and  deadly  foes  of  the  French ; 
secondly,  because  the  centre  of  the  French  power 
was  at  Montreal  and  Quebec,  and  from  those 
points  the  route  by  which  the  English  colonies 
could  be  most  easily  invaded  was  formed  by  Lake 
Champlain  and  the  Hudson  river.  New  York 
was  completely  interposed  between  New  England 


THE  COLONIES  IN  1750.  11 

and  the  rest  of  the  English  colonies,  so  that  an 
enemy  holding  possession  of  it  would  virtually  cut 
the  Atlantic  sea-board  in  two.  For  these  reasons 
the  political  action  of  New  York  was  of  most  crit 
ical  importance. 

Of  the  other  colonies  in  1750,  the  two  Car- 
olinas  and  New  Jersey  were  rather  more  than 
eighty  years  old,  while  Pennsylvania  had  been  - 
settled  scarcely  seventy  years.  But  the  growth 
of  these  younger  colonies  had  been  rapid,  espe 
cially  in  the  case  of  Pennsylvania  and  North  Car 
olina,  which  in  populousness  ranked  third  and 
fourth  among  the  thirteen.  This  rapid 
increase  was  mainly  due  to  a  large  im- 
migration  from  Europe  kept  up  during 
the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  vania- 
so  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  people  had  either 
been  born  in  Europe,  or  were  the  children  of  peo 
ple  born  in  Europe.  In  1750  these  colonies  had 
not  had  time  enough  to  become  so  intensely 
American  as  Virginia  and  the  New  England  col 
onies.  In  Georgia,  which  had  been  settled  only 
seventeen  years,  people  had  had  barely  time  to 
get  used  to  this  new  home  on  the  wild  frontier. 

The  population  of  these  younger  colonies  was 
very  much  mixed.  In  South  Carolina,  as  in  New 
York,  probably  less  than  half  were  English.  In 
both  Carolinas  there  were  a  great  many  Hugue 
nots  from  France,  and  immigrants  from  Germany 
and  Scotland  and  the  north  of  Ireland  were  still 


12  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

pouring  in.  Pennsylvania  had  many  Germans 
and  Irish,  and  settlers  from  other  parts  of  Eu 
rope,  besides  its  English  Quakers.  With  all  this 
diversity  of  race  there  was  a  great  diversity  of 
opinions  about  political  questions,  as  about  other 
matters. 

We  are  now  beginning  to  see  why  it  was  that 
Massachusetts  and  Virginia  took  the  lead  in 
bringing  on  the  revolutionary  war.  Not  only 
were  these  two  the  largest  colonies,  but 
chusettsand  their  people  had  become  much  more 
took  the  thoroughly  welded  together  in  their 
thoughts  and  habits  and  associations 
than  was  as  yet  possible  with  the  people  of  the 
younger  colonies.  When  the  revolutionary  war 
came,  there  were  very  few  Tories  in  the  New  Eng 
land  colonies  and  very  few  in  Virginia ;  but  there 
were  a  great  many  in  New  York  and  Pennsylvania 
and  the  two  Carolinas,  so  that  the  action  of  these 
commonwealths  was  often  slow  and  undecided,  and 
sometimes  there  was  bitter  and  bloody  fighting 
between  men  of  opposite  opinions,  especially  in 
New  York  and  South  Carolina. 

If  we  look  at  the  governments  of  the  thirteen 
colonies  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
we  shall  observe  some  interesting  facts.  All  the 
colonies  had  legislative  assemblies  elected  by  the 
people,  and  these  assemblies  levied  the  taxes  and 
made  the  laws.  So  far  as  the  legislatures  were 
concerned,  therefore,  all  the  colonies  governed 


The  two  re- 


THE   COLONIES  L\  1750.  13 

themselves.  But  with  regard  to  the  executive 
department  of  the  government,  there  were  very 
important  differences.  Only  two  of  the  colonies, 
Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island,  had  governors 
elected  by  the  people.  These  two  colonies  were 
completely  self-governing.  In  almost  everything 
but  name  they  were  independent  of  Great  Brit 
ain,  and  this  was  so  true  that  at  the  time  of 
the  revolutionary  war  they  did  not  need 
to  make  anv  new  constitutions  for  them-  publics ; 

Couuecti — 

selves,  but  continued  to  live  on  under  and  Rhode 

Island. 

their  old  charters  for  many  years,  — 
Connecticut  until  1818,  Rhode  Island  until  1843. 
Before  the  revolution  these  two  colonies  had  com 
paratively  few  direct  grievances  to  complain  of 
at  the  hands  of  Great  Britain ;  but  as  they  were 
next  neighbours  to  Massachusetts  and  closely 
connected  with  its  history,  they  were  likely  to 
sympathize  promptly  with  the  kind  of  grievances 
by  which  Massachusetts  was  disturbed. 

Three  of  the  colonies,  Pennsylvania,  Delaware, 
and  Maryland,  had  a  peculiar  kind  of  govern 
ment,  known  as  proprietary  government.  The  proprie- 

rr«i      •  -^       •  i       i  •     •        n         i  tory  g°vern- 

Their   territories   had   originally   been  ments;penn- 

,  sylvania, 

granted  bv  the  crown  to  a  person  known  Delaware, 

J  .  and  Mary- 

as  the  Lord  Proprietary,  and  the  lord-  land. 
proprietorship  descended  from  father  to  son  like 
a   kingdom.      In  Maryland  it  was   the  Calvert 
family  that  reigned  for  six  generations  as  lords 
proprietary.      Pennsylvania    and   Delaware    had 


14  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

each  its  own  separate  legislature,  but  over  both 
colonies  reigned  the  same  lord  proprietary,  who 
was  a  member  of  the  Penn  family.  These  colo 
nies  were  thus  like  little  hereditary  monarchies, 
and  they  had  but  few  direct  dealings  with  the 
British  government.  For  them  the  lords  proprie 
tary  stood  in  the  place  of  the  king,  and  appointed 
the  governors.  In  Maryland  this  system  ran 
smoothly.  In  Pennsylvania  there  was  a  good  deal 
of  dissatisfaction,  but  it  generally  assumed  the 
form  of  a  wish  to  get  rid  of  the  lords  proprietary 
and  have  the  governors  appointed  by  the  king ; 
for  as  this  was  something  they  had  not  tried  they 
were  not  prepared  to  appreciate  its  evils. 

In  the  other  eight  colonies  —  New  Hampshire, 
Massachusetts,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Virginia, 
the  two  Carolinas,  and  Georgia  —  the  governors 
The  crown  were  appointed  by  the  king,  and  were 
t£ir0SyaTd  commonly  known  as  "  royal  governors." 
governors.  They  were  sometimes  natives  of  the 
colonies  over  which  they  were  appointed,  as  Dud 
ley  and  Hutchinson  of  Massachusetts,  and  others  ; 
but  were  more  often  sent  over  from  England. 
Some  of  them,  as  Pownall  of  Massachusetts  and 
Spotswood  of  Virginia,  were  men  of  marked  abil 
ity.  Some  were  honest  gentlemen,  who  felt  a  real 
interest  in  the  welfare  of  the  people  they  came  to 
help  govern  ;  some  were  unprincipled  adventurers, 
who  came  to  make  money  by  fair  means  or  foul. 
Their  position  was  one  of  much  dignity,  and  they 


THE   COLONIES  IN  1750.  15 

behaved  themselves  like  lesser  kings.  What 
with  their  crimson  velvets  and  fine  laces  and 
stately  coaches,  they  made  much  more  of  a  show 
than  any  president  of  the  United  States  would 
;hink  of  making  to-day.  They  had  no  fixed  terms 
of  office,  but  remained  at  their  posts  as  long  as 
the  king,  or  the  king's  colonial  secretary,  saw  fit 
to  keep  them  there. 

Now  it  was  generally  true  of  the  royal  govern 
ors  that,  whether  they  were  natives  of  America  or 
sent  over  from  England,  and  whether  they  were 
good  men  or  bad,  they  were  very  apt  to  make 
themselves  disliked  by  the  people,  and  they  were 
almost  always  quarrelling  with  their  legislative 
assemblies.  Questions  were  always  coming  up 
about  which  the  governor  and  the  legislature 
could  not  agree,  because  the  legislature  repre 
sented  the  views  of  the  people  who  had  chosen  it, 
while  the  governor  represented  his  own  views  or 
the  views  which  prevailed  three  thousand  miles 
away  among  the  king's  ministers,  who  very  often 
knew  little  about  America  and  cared  less.  One 
of  these  disputed  questions  related  to  the  gov 
ernor's  salary.  It  was  natural  that  the  The  question 
governor  should  wish  to  have  a  salary  M  to  8alaries- 
of  fixed  amount,  so  that  he  might  know  from 
year  to  year  what  he  was  going  to  receive.  But 
the  people  were  afraid  that  if  this  were  to  be 
done  the  governor  might  become  too  independent. 
They  preferred  that  the  legislature  should  each 


16  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

year  make  a  grant  of  money  such  as  it  should 
deem  suitable  for  the  governor's  expenses,  and 
this  sum  it  might  increase  or  diminish  according 
to  its  own  good  pleasure.  This  would  keep  the 
governor  properly  subservient  to  the  legislature. 
Before  1750  there  had  been  much  bitter  wrangling 
over  this  question  in  several  of  the  colonies,  and 
the  governors  had  one  after  another  been  obliged 
to  submit,  though  with  very  ill  grace. 

Sometimes  the  thoughts  of  the  royal  governors 
and  their  friends  went  beyond  this  immediate 
question.  Since  the  legislatures  were  so  froward 
and  so  niggardly,  what  an  admirable  plan  it  would 
be  to  have  the  governors  paid  out  of  the  royal 
treasury  and  thus  made  comparatively  independ 
ent  of  the  legislatures !  The  judges,  too,  who 
were  quite  poorly  paid,  might  fare  much  better  if 
remunerated  by  the  crown,  and  the  same  might  be 
said  of  some  other  public  officers.  But  if  the 
British  government  were  to  undertake  to  pay  the 
salaries  of  its  officials  in  America,  it  must  raise  a 
revenue  for  the  purpose ;  and  it  would  naturally 
raise  such  a  revenue  by  levying  taxes  in  America 
rather  than  in  England.  People  in  England  felt 
that  they  were  already  taxed  as  heavily  as  they 
could  bear,  in  order  to  pay  the  expenses  of  their 
own  government.  They  could  not  be  expected  to 
submit  to  further  taxation  for  the  sake  of  paying 
the  expenses  of  governing  the  American  colonies. 
If  further  taxes  were  to  be  laid  for  such  a  pur- 


I' HE    COLONIES  IN  1750.  17 

pose,  they  must  in  fairness  be  laid  upon  Amer 
icans,  not  upon  Englishmen  in  the  old  country. 

Such  was  the  view  which  people  in  England 
would  naturally  be  expected  to  take,  and  such  was 
the  view  which  they  generally  did  take.  But 
there  was  another  side  to  the  question  which  was 
very  clearly  seen  by  most  people  in  America.  If 
the  royal  governors  were  to  be  paid  by  the  crown 
and  thus  made  independent  of  their  legislatures, 
there  would  be  danger  of  their  becoming  petty 
tyrants  and  interfering  in  many  ways  with  the 
liberties  of  the  people.  Still  greater  would  be 
the  danger  if  the  judges  were  to  be  paid  by  the 
crown,  for  then  they  would  feel  themselves  re 
sponsible  to  the  king  or  to  the  royal  governor, 
rather  than  to  their  fellow-citizens ;  and  it  would 
be  easy  for  the  governors,  by  appointing  corrupt 
men  as  judges,  to  prevent  the  proper  adminis 
tration  of  justice  by  the  courts,  and  thus  to  make 
men's  lives  and  property  insecure.  Most  Amer 
icans  in  1750  felt  this  danger  very  keenly.  They 
had  not  forgotten  how,  in  the  times  of  their  grand 
fathers,  two  of  the  noblest  of  Englishmen,  Lord 
William  Russell  and"  Colonel  Algernon  Sidney, 
had  been  murdered  by  the  iniquitous  sentence  of 
time-serving  judges.  They  had  not  forgotten  the 
ruffian  George  Jeffreys  and  his  "  bloody  assizes  " 
of  1685.  They  well  remembered  how  their  kins 
men  in  England  had  driven  into  exile  the  Stuart 
family  of  kings,  who  were  even  yet,  in  1745, 


18  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

making  efforts  to  recover  their  lost  throne.  They 
remembered  how  the  beginnings  of  New  England 
had  been  made  by  stout-hearted  men  who  could 
not  endure  the  tyranny  of  these  same  Stuarts ; 
and  they  knew  well  that  one  of  the  worst  of  the 
evils  upon  which  Stuart  tyranny  had  fattened  had 
been  the  corruption  of  the  courts  of  justice.  The 
Americans  believed  with  some  reason,  that  even 
now,  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the 
administration  of  justice  in  their  own  common 
wealths  was  decidedly  better  than  in  Great  Britain ; 
and  they  had  no  mind  to  have  it  disturbed. 

But  worse  than  all,  if  the  expenses  of  govern 
ing  America  were  to  be  paid  by  taxes  levied  upon 
Americans  and  collected  from  them  by  king  or 
parliament  or  any  power  whatsoever  residing  in 
Great  Britain,  then  the  inhabitants  of  the  thirteen 
American  colonies  would  at  once  cease  to  be  free 
people.  A  free  country  is  one  in  which  the  gov 
ernment  cannot  take  away  people's  money,  in  the 
shape  of  taxes,  except  for  strictly  pub- 

"  No  taxation  .     L 

without  rep-    he  purposes  and  with  the  consent  of  the 

resentation." 

people  themselves,  as  expressed  by  some 
body  of  representatives  whom  the  people  have 
chosen.  If  people's  money  can  be  taken  from 
them  without  their  consent,  no  matter  how  small 
the  amount,  even  if  it  be  less  than  one  dollar  out 
out  of  every  thousand,  then  they  are  not  politi 
cally  free.  They  do  not  govern,  but  the  power 
that  thus  takes  their  money  without  their  consent 


THE    COLONIES  IN  1750.  19 

is  the  power  that  governs ;  and  there  is  nothing 
to  prevent  such  a  power  from  using  the  money 
thus  obtained  to  strengthen  itself  until  it  can 
trample  upon  people's  rights  in  every  direction, 
and  rob  them  of  their  homes  and  lives  as  w'ell  as 
of  their  money.  If  the  British  government  could 
tax  the  Americans  without  their  consent,  it  might 
use  the  money  for  supporting  a  British  army  in 
America,  and  such  an  army  might  be  employed  in 
intimidating  the  legislatures,  in  dispersing  town- 
meetings,  in  destroying  newspaper-offices,  or  in 
other  acts  of  tyranny. 

The  Americans  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century  well  understood  that  the  princi- 

,         „  "  .  It  was  the 

pie  of  "  no  taxation  without  representa-  fundamental 

.  .       .     ,  p     principle  of 

tion      is  the   fundamental  principle  of  English 

.       .    ,        liberty. 

tree  government.  It  was  the  principle 
for  which  their  forefathers  had  contended  again 
and  again  in  England,  and  upon  which  the  noble 
edifice  of  English  liberty  had  been  raised  and 
consolidated  since  the  grand  struggle  between 
king  and  barons  in  the  thirteenth  century.  It  had 
passed  into  a  tradition,  both  in  England  and  in 
America,  that  in  order  to  prevent  the  crown  from 
becoming  despotic,  it  was  necessary  that  it  should 
only  wield  such  revenues  as  the  representatives  of 
the  people  might  be  pleased  to  grant  it.  In  Eng 
land  the  body  which  represented  the  people  was 
the  House  of  Commons,  in  each  of  the  American 
colonies  it  was  the  colonial  legislature ;  and  in 


20  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

dealing  with  the  royal  governors,  the  legislatures 
acted  upon  the  same  general  principles  as  the 
House  of  Commons  in  dealing  with  the  king. 

It  was  not  until  some  time  after  1750  that  any 
grand  assault  was  made  upon  the  principle  of 
"  no  taxation  without  representation,"  but  the  fre 
quent  disputes  with  the  royal  governors  were  such 
as  to  keep  people  from  losing  sight  of  this  princi 
ple,  and  to  make  them  sensitive  about  acts  that 
might  lead  to  violations  of  it.  In  the  particular 
disputes  the  governors  were  sometimes  clearly 
right  and  the  people  wrong.  One  of  the  princi 
pal  objects,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  for 

Sometimes        ^_  .    _    J.  J 

the  royal        which  the  governors  wanted  money,  was 

governors  . 

were  in  the     to  maintain  troops  ior  defence  against 

right,  as  to  r 

the  particu-    the  French  and  the  Indians ;   and  the 

lar  question. 

legislatures  were  apt  to  be  short-sighted 
and  unreasonably  stingy  about  such  matters. 
Again,  the  people  were  sometimes  seized  with  a 
silly  craze  for  "  paper  money  "  and  "  wild-cat 
banks  "  —  devices  for  making  money  out  of  noth 
ing —  and  sometimes  the  governors  were  sensible 
enough  to  oppose  such  delusions  but  not  alto 
gether  sensible  in  their  manner  of  doing  it.  Thus 
in  1740  there  was  fierce  excitement  in  Massachu 
setts  over  a  quarrel  between  the  governor  and  the 
legislature  about  the  famous  "silver  bank"  and 
"land  bank."  These  institutions  were  a  public 
nuisance  and  deserved  to  be  suppressed,  but  the 
governor  was  obliged  to  appeal  to  parliament  in 


THE   COLONIES  IN  1750.  21 

order  to  succeed  in  doing  it.  This  led  many  peo 
ple  to  ask,  fc*  What  business  has  a  parliament  sit 
ting  the  other  side  of  the  ocean  to  be  making  laws 
for  us  ?  "  and  the  grumbling  was  loud  and  bitter 
enough  to  show  that  this  was  a  very  dangerous 
question  to  raise. 

It  was  in  the  eight  colonies  which  had  royal 
governors  that  troubles  of  a  revolutionary  char 
acter  were  more  likely  to  arise  than  in  the  other 
five,  but  there  were  special  reasons,  besides  those 
already  mentioned,  why  Massachusetts  and  Vir 
ginia  should  prove  more  refractory  than 

-  Bitter  mem- 

any  of   the   others.      Both  these  great  cries ;  in 

,  .  Virginia. 

commonwealths  had  bitter  memories. 
Things  had  happened  in  both  which  might  serve 
as  a  warning,  and  which  some  of  the  old  men  still 
living  in  1750  could  distinctly  remember.  In 
Virginia  the  misgovernment  of  the  royal  gov 
ernor  Sir  William  Berkeley  had  led  in  1675  to 
the  famous  rebellion  headed  by  Nathaniel  Bacon, 
and  this  rebellion  had  been  suppressed  with  much 
harshness.  Many  leading  citizens  had  been  sent 
to  the  gallows  and  their  estates  had  been  confis 
cated.  In  Massachusetts,  though  there  were  no 
such  scenes  of  cruelty  to  remember,  the  grievance 
was  much  more  deep-seated  and  enduring. 

Massachusetts  had  not  been  originally  a  royal 
province,  with  its  governors  appointed  by  the 
king.  At  first  it  had  been  a  republic,  such  as 
Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island  now  were,  with 


22  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

governors  chosen  by  the  people.  From  its  foun 
dation  in  1629  down  to  1684  the  commonwealth 
of  Massachusetts  had  managed  its  own  affairs  at 
And  in  Mas-  ^s  own  g°O(l  pleasure.  Practically  it 
sacbusetts.  ^ad  ^een  no£  on}v  self-govermng  but 

almost  independent.  That  was  because  affairs  in 
England  were  in  such  confusion  that  until  after 
1860  comparatively  little  attention  was  paid  to 
what  was  going  on  in  America,  and  the  liberties 
of  Massachusetts  prospered  through  the  neglect 
of  what  was  then  called  the  "  home  government." 
After  Charles  II.  came  to  the  throne  in  1660  he 
began  to  interfere  with  the  affairs  of  Massachu 
setts,  and  so  the  very  first  generation  of  men  that 
had  been  born  on  the  soil  of  that  commonwealth 
were  engaged  in  a  long  struggle  against  the  Brit 
ish  king  for  the  right  of  managing  their  own  af 
fairs.  After  more  than  twenty  years  of  this 
struggle,  which  by  1675  had  come  to  be  quite  bit 
ter,  the  charter  of  Massachusetts  was  annulled  in 
1684  and  its  free  government  was  for  the  moment 
destroyed.  Presently  a  viceroy  was  sent  over 
from  England,  to  govern  Massachusetts  (as  well 
as  several  other  northern  colonies)  despotically. 
This  viceroy,  Sir  Edmund  Andros,  seems  to  have 
been  a  fairly  well  meaning  man.  He  was  not  es 
pecially  harsh  or  cruel,  but  his  rule  was  a  despot 
ism,  because  he  was  not  responsible  to  the  people 
for  what  he  did,  but  only  to  the  king.  In  point 
of  fact  the  two-and-a-half  years  of  his  adminis- 


I 

THE   COLONIES  IN  1750.  23 

tration  were  characterized  bj-  arbitrary  arrests 
and  by  interference  with  private  property  and 
with  the  freedom  of  the  press.  It  was  so  vexa 
tions  that  early  in  1689,  taking  advantage  of  the 
Revolution  then  going  on  in  England,  the  people 
of  Boston  rose  in  rebellion,  seized  Andros  and 
threw  him  into  jail,  and  set  up  for  themselves  a 
provisional  government.  When  the  affairs  of  New 
England  were  settled  after  the  accession  of  Wil 
liam  and  Mary  to  the  throne,  Connecticut  and 
Rhode  Island  were  allowed  to  keep  their  old  gov 
ernments  ;  but  Massachusetts  in  1693  was  obliged 
to  take  a  new  charter  instead  of  her  old  one,  and 
although  this  new  charter  revived  the  election  of 
legislatures  by  the  people,  it  left  the  governors 
henceforth  to  be  appointed  by  the  king. 

In  the  political  controversies  of  Massachusetts, 
therefore,  in  the  eighteenth  century,  the  people 
were  animated  by  the  recollection  of  what  they 
had  lost.  They  were  somewhat  less  free  and  in 
dependent  than  their  grandfathers  had  been,  and 
they  had  learned  what  it  was  to  have  an  irrespon 
sible  ruler  sitting  at  his  desk  in  Boston  and  sign 
ing  warrants  for  the  arrest  of  loved  and  respected 
citizens  who  dared  criticise  his  sayings  and  doings. 
"  Taxation  without  representation "  was  not  for 
them  a  mere  abstract  theory ;  they  knew  what  it 
meant.  It  was  as  near  to  them  as  the  presidency 
of  Andrew  Jackson  is  to  us ;  there  had  not  been 
time  enough  to  forget  it.  In  every  contest  be- 


24  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

tween  the  popular  legislature  and  the  royal  gov 
ernor  there  was  some  broad  principle  involved 
which  there  were  plenty  of  well-remembered  facts 
to  illustrate. 

These  contests  also  helped  to  arouse  a  strong 
sympathy  between  the  popular  leaders  in  Massa 
chusetts  and  in  Virginia.  Between  the  people 
of  the  two  colonies  there  was  not  much  real  sym 
pathy,  because  there  was  a  good  deal  of  differ 
ence  between  their  ways  of  life  and  their  opin 
ions  about  things  ;  and  people,  unless  they  are 
unusually  wise  and  generous  of  nature,  are  apt 
to  dislike  and  despise  those  who  differ  from  them 
in  opinions  and  habits.  So  there  was  little  cor- 
Grounds  of  diality  of  feeling  between  the  people  of 
bSwPeaeny  Massachusetts  and  the  people  of  Vir- 
2ttTaCiIdU"  ginia,  but  in  spite  of  this  there  was  a 
great  and  growing  political  sympathy. 
This  was  because,  ever  since  1693,  they  had  been 
obliged  to  deal  with  the  same  kind  of  political 
questions.  It  became  intensely  interesting  to  a 
Virginian  to  watch  the  progress  of  a  dispute  be 
tween  the  governor  and  legislature  of  Massachu 
setts,  because  whatever  principle  might  be  victo 
rious  in  the  course  of  such  a  dispute,  it  was  sure 
soon  to  find  a  practical  application  in  Virginia. 
Hence  by  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century 
the  two  colonies  were  keenly  observant  of  each 
other,  and  either  one  was  exceedingly  prompt  in 
taking  its  cue  from  the  other.  It  is  worth  while 


THE   COLONIES  IN  1750.  25 

to  remember  this  fact,  for  without  it  there  would 
doubtless  have  been  rebellions  or  revolutions  of 
American  colonies,  but  there  would  hardly  have 
been  one  American  Revolution,  ending  in  a  grand 
American  Union. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE   FRENCH    WARS,    AND   THE   FIRST   PLAN    OF 
UNION. 

IT  was  said  a  moment  ago  that  one  of  the  chief 
objects  for  which  the  governors  wanted  money 
was  to  maintain  troops  for  defence  against  the 
French  and  the  Indians.  This  was  a  very  serious 
matter  indeed.  To  any  one  who  looked  at  a  map 
of  North  America  in  1750  it  might  well  have 
seemed  as  if  the  French  had  secured  for  them 
selves  the  greater  part  of  the  continent.  The 

western  frontier  of   the  English  settle- 
Disputed 

frontier  be-    ments  was  generally   within   two   hun- 

tween  •> 

dred   miles  °f  tne  sea-coast.       In  New 
york  it  was  at  Jonnson   Hall,  not  far 

from  Schenectady ;  in  Pennsylvania  it  was  about 
at  Carlisle  ;  in  Virginia  it  was  near  Winchester, 
and  the  first  explorers  were  just  making  their 
way  across  the  Alleghany  mountains.  Westward 
of  these  frontier  settlements  lay  endless  stretches 
of  forest  inhabited  by  warlike  tribes  of  red  men 
who,  everywhere  except  in  New  York,  were  hostile 
to  the  English  and  friendly  to  the  French.  Since 
the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century  French 
towns  and  villages  had  been  growing  up  along 


THE  FRENCH  WARS.  27 

the  St.  Lawrence,  and  French  explorers  had  been 
pushing  across  the  Great  Lakes  and  down  the 
valley  of  the  Mississippi  river,  near  the  mouth  of 
which  the  French  town  of  New  Orleans  had  been 
standing  since  1718.  It  was  the  French  doctrine 
that  discovery  and  possession  of  a  river  gave  a 
claim  to  all  the  territory  drained  by  that  river. 
According  to  this  doctrine  every  acre  of  Ameri 
can  soil  from  which  water  flowed  into  the  St.  Law 
rence  and  the  Mississippi  belonged  to  France. 
The  claims  of  the  French  thus  came  up  to  the 
very  crest  of  the  Alleghanies,  and  they  made  no 
secret  of  their  intention  to  shut  up  the  English 
forever  between  that  chain  of  mountains  and  the 
sea-coast.  There  were  times  when  their  aims  were 
still  more  aggressive  and  dangerous,  when  they 
looked  with  longing  eyes  upon  the  valley  of  the 
Hudson,  and  would  fain  have  broken  through 
that  military  centre  of  the  line  of  English  com 
monwealths  and  seized  the  keys  of  empire  over 
the  continent. 

From  this  height  of  their  ambition  the  French 
were  kept  aloof  by  the  deadly  enmity  of  the  most 
fierce  and  powerful  savages  in  the  New  World. 
The  Indians  of  those  days  who  came  into  contact 
with  the  white  settlers  were  divided  into   many 
tribes  with  different  names,  but  they  all  belonged 
to  one  or  another  of  three  great  stocks  ^  Indian 
or  families.     First,  there  were  the  Mo-  tribes* 
bilians,  far  down  south  ;  to  this  stock  belonged 


28  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

the  Creeks,  Cherokees,  and  others.  Secondly, 
there  were  the  Algonquins,  comprising  the  Dela- 
wares  to  the  south  of  the  Susquehanna ;  the 
Miamis,  Shawnees,  and  others  in  the  western 
wilderness  ;  the  Ottawas  in  Canada  ;  and  all  the 
tribes  still  left  to  the  northeast  of  New  England 
Thirdly,  there  were  the  Iroquois,  of  whom  the 
most  famous  were  the  Five  Nations  of  what  is 
now  central  New  York.  These  five  great  tribes 
—  the  Mohawks,  Oneidas,  Onondagas,  Cayugas, 
and  Senecas  —  had  for  several  generations  been 
united  in  a  confederacy  which  they  likened  to  a 
long  wigwam  with  its  eastern  door  looking  out 
upon  the  valley  of  the  Hudson  and  its  western 
toward  the  falls  of  Niagara.  It  was  known  far 
and  wide  over  the  continent  as  the  Long  House, 
and  wherever  it  was  known  it  was  dreaded. 
When  Frenchmen  and  Englishmen  first  settled 
in  America,  this  Iroquois  league  was  engaged  in 
a  long  career  of  conquest.  Algonquin  tribes  all 
the  way  from  the  Connecticut  to  the  Mississippi 
were  treated  as  its  vassals  and  forced  to  pay  trib 
ute  in  weapons  and  wampum.  This  conquering 
career  extended  through  the  seventeenth  century, 
until  it  was  brought  to  an  end  by  the  French. 
When  the  latter  began  making  settlements  in 
Canada,  they  courted  the  friendship  of  their  Al 
gonquin  neighbours,  and  thus,  without  dreaming 
what  deadly  seed  they  were  sowing,  they  were  led 
to  attack  the  terrible  Long  House.  It  was  easy 


THE  FRENCH  WARS.  29 

enough  for  Champlain  in  1609  to  win  a  victory 
over  savages  who  had  never  before  seen  a  white 
man  or  heard  the  report  of  a  musket ;  but  the 
victory  was  a  fatal  one  for  the  French,  for  it 
made  the  Iroquois  their  eternal  enemies.  The 
Lon<r  House  allied  itself  first  with  the  Dutch 

O 

and  afterwards  with  the  English,  and  thus 
checked  the  progress  of  the  French  toward  the 
lower  Hudson.  We  too  seldom  think  how  much 
we  owe  to  those  formidable  savages. 

The  Iroquois  pressed  the  French  with  so  much 
vigour  that  in  1689  they  even  laid  siege 
to  Montreal.     But  by  1696  the  French,  and  the 

IroQuois. 

assisted  by  all  the  Algonquin  tribes 
within  reach,  and  led  by  their  warlike  viceroy, 
Count  Frontenac,  one  of  the  most  picturesque 
figures  in  American  history,  at  length  succeeded 
in  getting  the  upperhaiid  and  dealing  the  Long 
House  a  terrible  blow,  from  the  effects  of  which 
it  never  recovered.  The  league  remained  formid 
able,  however,  until  the  time  of  the  revolutionary 
war.  In  1715  its  fighting  strength  was  partially 
repaired  by  the  adoption  of  the  kindred  Iroquois 
tribe  of  Tuscaroras,  who  had  just  been  expelled 
from  North  Carolina  by  the  English  settlers,  and 
migrated  to  New  York.  After  this  accession  the 
league,  henceforth  known  as  the  Six  Nations, 
formed  a  power  by  no  means  to  be  despised, 
though  much  less  bold  and  aggressive  than  in  the 
previous  century. 


30  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

After  administering  a  check  to  the  Iroquois,  the 
French  and  Algonquins  kept  up  for  more  than 
sixty  years  a  desultory  warfare  against  the  Eng 
lish  colonies.  Whenever  war  broke  out  between 
England  and  France,  it  meant  war  in  America  as 
well  as  in  Europe.  Indeed,  one  of  the  chief  ob 
jects  of  war,  on  the  part  of  each  of  these  two  na 
tions,  was  to  extend  its  colonial  dominions  at  the 
expense  of  the  other.  France  and  England  were 
at  war  from  1689  to  1697;  from  1702  to  1713; 
and  from  1743  to  1748.  The  men  in  New  York 
or  Boston  in  1750,  who  could  remember  the  past 
sixty  years,  could  thus  look  back  over  at  least 
four-and-twenty  years  of  open  war ;  and  even  in 
the  intervals  of  professed  peace  there  was  a  good 
deal  of  disturbance  011  the  frontiers.  A  most 
frightful  sort  of  warfare  it  was,  ghastly  with  tor 
ture  of  prisoners  and  the  ruthless  murder  of 
women  and  children.  The  expense  of  raising  and 
arming  troops  for  defence  was  great  enough  to 
subject  several  of  the  colonies  to  a  heavy  burden 
of  debt.  In  1750  Massachusetts  was  just  throw 
ing  off  the  load  of  debt  under  which  she  had 
staggered  since  1693 ;  and  most  of  this  debt  was 
incurred  for  expeditions  against  the  French  and 
Algonquins. 

Under  these  circumstances  it  was  natural  that 
the  colonial  governments  should  find  it  hard  to 
raise  enough  money  for  war  expenses,  and  that 
the  governors  should  think  the  legislatures  too 


THE  FRENCH  WARS.  31 

slow  in  acting.  They  were  slow  ;  for,  as  is  apt  to 
be  the  case  when  money  is  to  be  borrowed  with 
out  the  best  security,  there  were  a  good  many 
things  to  be  considered.  All  this  was  made  worse 
by  the  fact  that  there  were  so  many  separate  gov 
ernments,  so  that  each  one  was  inclined  to  hold 
back  and  wait  for  the  others.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  French  viceroy  in  Canada  had  despotic  power ; 
the  colony  which  he  governed  never  pretended  to 
be  self-supporting  ;  and  so,  if  he  could  not  squeeze 
money  enough  out  of  the  people  in  Canada,  he 
just  sent  to  France  for  it  and  got  it ;  for  the  gov 
ernment  of  Louis  XV.  regarded  Canada  as  one  of 
the  brightest  jewels  in  its  crown,  and  was  always 
ready  to  spend  money  for  damaging  the 

w       I-  1_          A  v  ^        I*  Difficulty  of 

J£ngli3n.     Accordingly  the    r  rencnman   Retting  the 

?J        1  I.'  •  n     V-  J     English  col- 

COUKl  plan  his   campaign,  call   his   red  omestoact 

in  concert. 

men  together,  and  set  the  whole  frontier 
in  a  blaze,  while  the  legislatures  in  Boston  or 
New  York  were  talking  about  what  had  better 
be  done  in  case  of  invasion.  No  wonder  the  royal 
governors  fretted  and  fumed,  and  sent  home  to 
England  dismal  accounts  of  the  perverseness  of 
these  Americans !  Many  people  in  England 
thought  that  the  colonies  were  allowed  to  govern 
themselves  altogether  too  much,  and  that  for  their 
own  good  the  British  government  ought  to  tax 
them.  Once  while  Sir  Robert  Walpole  was  prime 
minister  (1721-1742)  some  one  is  said  to  have 
advis&d  him  to  lay  a  direct  tax  upon  the  Ameri- 


32  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

cans ;  but  that  wise  old  statesman  shook  his  head. 
It  was  bad  enough,  he  said,  to  be  scolded  and 
abused  by  half  the  people  in  the  old  country  ;  he 
did  not  wish  to  make  enemies  of  every  man, 
woman,  and  child  in  the  new. 

But  if  the  power  to  raise  American  armies  for 
the  common  defence,  and  to  collect  money  in 
America  for  this  purpose,  was  not  to  be  assumed 
by  the  British  government,  was  there  any  way  in 
which  unity  and  promptness  of  action  in  time  of 
war  could  be  secured  ?  There  was  another  way, 
if  people  could  bo  persuaded  to  adopt  it.  The 
thirteen  colonies  might  be  joined  together  in  a 
federal  union  ;  and  the  federal  government,  with 
out  interfering  in  the  local  affairs  of  any  single 
colony,  might  be  clothed  with  the  power  of  levy 
ing  taxes  all  over  the  country  for  purposes  of 
common  defence.  The  royal  governors  were  in 
clined  to  favour  a  union  of  the  colonies,  no  matter 
how  it  mi^ht  be  brought  about.  Thev 

Need  of  a  _.&  i       •    • 

union  be-       thought  it  necessary  that  some  decisive 

tween  the  TIT  -i  •    i  i 

English  coi-  step  should  be  taken  quickly,  for  it  was 

onies. 

evident  that  the  peace  of  1748  was  only 
an  armed  truce.  Evidently  a  great  and  decisive 
struggle  was  at  hand.  In  1750  the  Ohio  Com 
pany,  formed  for  the  purpose  of  colonizing  the 
valley  drained  by  that  river,  had  surveyed  the 
country  as  far  as  the  present  site  of  Louisville. 
In  1753  the  French,  taking  the  alarm,  crossed 
Lake  Erie,  and  began  to  fortify  themselves  at 


THE  FRENCH  WARS.  33 

Presque  Isle,  and  at  Venango  on  the  Allegheny 
river.  They  seized  persons  trading  within  the 
limits  of  the  Ohio  Company,  which  lay  within  the 
territory  of  Virginia;  and  accordingly  Governor 
Dinwiddie,  of  Virginia,  selected  George  Washing 
ton —  a  venturous  and  hardy  young  land-sur 
veyor,  only  twenty-one  years  old,  but  gifted  with 
a  sagacity  beyond  his  years  —  and  sent  him  to 
Venango  to  warn  off  the  trespassers.  It  was  an 
exceedingly  delicate  and  dangerous  mission,  and 
Washington  showed  rare  skill  and  courage  in  this 
first  act  of  his  public  career,  but  the  French  com 
mander  made  polite  excuses  and  remained.  Next 
spring  the  French  and  English  tried  each  to  fore 
stall  the  other  in  fortifying  the  all-important  place 
where  the  Alleghany  and  Monongahela  rivers 
unite  to  form  the  Ohio,  the  place  long  afterward 
commonly  known  as  the  "  Gateway  of  the  West," 
the  place  where  the  city  of  Pittsburgh  now  stands. 
In  the  course  of  these  preliminary  manosuvres 
Washington  was  besieged  in  Fort  Necessity  by 
overwhelming  numbers,  and  on  July  4,  1754,  was 
obliged  to  surrender  the  whole  of  his  force,  but 
obtained  leave  to  march  away.  So  the  French 
got  possession  of  the  much-coveted  situation,  and 
erected  there  Fort  Duquesne  as  a  menace  to  all 
future  English  intruders.  As  yet  war  had  not 
been  declared  between  France  and  England,  but 
these  skirmishings  indicated  that  war  in  earnest 
was  not  far  off. 


34  Till:   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

In  view  of  the  approaching  war  a  meeting  was 
arranged  at  Albany  between  the  principal  chiefs 
of  the  Six  Nations  and  commissioners  from  sev 
eral  of  the  colonies,  that  the  alliance  between  Eng 
lish  and  Iroquois  might  be  freshly  cemented  ;  and 
some  of  the  royal  governors  improved  the  occasion 
to  call  for  a  Congress  of  ah1  the  colonies,  in  order 
to  prepare  some  plan  of  confederation 
at  Albany,  such  as  all  the  colonies  might  be  willing 
to  adopt.  At  the  time  of  Washington's 
surrender  snch  a  Congress  was  in  session  at  Al 
bany,  but  Maryland  was  the  most  southerly  colony 
represented  in  it.  The  people  nowhere  showed 
any  interest  in  it.  No  public  meetings  were  held 
in  its  favour.  The  only  newspaper  which  warmly 
approved  it  was  the  "  Pennsylvania  Gazette," 
which  appeared  with  a  union  device,  a  snake  di 
vided  into  thirteen  segments,  with  the  motto 
"  Unite  or  Die  !  " 

The  editor  of  this  paper  was  Benjamin  Frank 
lin,  then  eight-and-forty  years  of  age  and  already 
one  of  the  most  famous  men  in  America.  In  the 
preceding  year  he  had  been  appointed  by  the 
crown  postmaster-general  for  the  American  colo 
nies,  and  he  had  received  from  the  Royal  Society 
the  Copley  medal  for  his  brilliant  discovery  that 
lightning  is  a  discharge  of  electricity.  Franklin 
was  very  anxious  to  see  the  colonies  united  in  a 
federal  body,  and  he  was  now  a  delegate  to  the 
Congress.  He  drew  up  a  plan  of  union  which  the 


THE  FIRST  PLAN  OF   UNION.  35 

Congress  adopted,  after  a  very  long  debate ;  and 
it  has  ever  since  been  known  as  the  Albany  Plan. 
The  federal  government  was  to  consist,  first,  of 
a  President  or  Governor-general,  appointed  and 
paid  by  the  crown,  and  holding  office  during  its 
pleasure  ;  and  secondly,  of  a  Grand  Council  com 
posed  of  representatives  elected  every  third  year 
by  the  legislatures  of  the  several  colonies.  This 
federal  government  was  not  to  meddle  Franklin,8 
with  the  internal  affairs  of  any  colony,  R£^2 a 
but  on  questions  of  war  and  such  other  Umon' 
questions  as  concerned  all  the  colonies  alike,  it 
was  to  be  supreme  ;  and  to  this  end  it  was  to  have 
the  power  of  levying  taxes  for  federal  purposes 
directly  upon  the  people  of  the  several  colonies. 
Philadelphia,  as  the  most  centrally  situated  of  the 
larger  towns,  was  mentioned  as  a  proper  seat  for 
the  federal  government. 

The  end  of  our  story  will  show  the  wonderful 
foresightedness  of  Franklin's  scheme.  If  the  Rev 
olution  had  never  occurred,  we  might  very  likely 
have  sooner  or  later  come  to  live  under  a  constitu 
tion  resembling  the  Albany  Plan.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  the  Albany  Plan  had  been  put  into  oper 
ation,  it  might  perhaps  have  so  adjusted  the  rela 
tions  of  the  colonies  to  the  British  government 
that  the  Revolution  would  not  have  occurred. 
Perhaps,  however,  it  would  only  have  reproduced, 
on  a  larger  scale,  the  irrepressible  conflict  between 
royal  governor  and  popular  assembly.  The  scheme 


36  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

failed  for  want  of  support.  The  Congress  rec 
ommended  it  to  the  colonial  legislatures,  but  not 
one  of  them  voted  to  adopt  it.  The  difficulty 
was  the  same  in  1754  that  it  was  thirty  years 
later,  —  only  much  stronger.  The  people  of  one 
colony  saw  but  little  of  the  people  in  another,  had 
but  few  dealings  with  them,  and  cared  not  much 
about  them.  They  knew  and  trusted  their  own 
local  assemblies  which  sat  and  voted  almost  under 
their  eyes  ;  they  were  not  inclined  to  grant  strange 
powers  of  taxation  to  a  new  assembly  distant  by 
a  week's  journey.  This  was  a  point  to  which  peo 
ple  could  never  have  been  brought  except  as  the 
alternative  to  something  confessedly  worse. 

The  failure  of  the  Albany  Plan  left  the  ques 
tion  of  providing  for  military  defence  just  where 
it  was  before,  and  the  great  Seven  Years'  War 
came  on  while  governors  and  assemblies  were 
wrangling  to  no  purpose.  In  1755  Braddock's 
armv  was  unable  to  get  support  except 

Its  failure.        „         J     .  ,,  X, 

from  the  steadfast  personal  exertions  of 
Franklin,  who  used  his  great  influence  with  the 
farmers  of  Pennsylvania  to  obtain  horses,  wagons, 
and  provisions,  pledging  his  own  property  for 
their  payment.  Nevertheless,  as  the  war  went  on 
and  the  people  of  the  colonies  became  fully  alive 
to  its  importance,  they  did  contribute  liberally 
both  in  men  and  in  money,  and  at  last  it  appeared 
that  in  proportion  to  their  wealth  and  population 
they  had  done  even  more  than  the^  regular  army 


THE  FIRST  PLAN  OF   UNION.  37 

and  the  royal  exchequer  toward  overthrowing  the 
common  enemy. 

When  the  war  came  to  an  end  in  17G3  the 
whole  face  of  things  in  America  was  changed. 
Seldom,  if  ever,  had  the  world  seen  so  complete  a 
victory.  France  no  longer  possessed  so  much  as 
an  acre  of  ground  in  all  North  America.  The 
unknown  regions  beyond  the  Mississippi  river 
were  handed  over  to  Spain  in  payment  for  boot 
less  assistance  rendered  to  France  toward  the 
close  of  the  war.  Spain  also  received  New  Or 
leans,  while  Florida,  which  then  reached  west 
ward  nearly  to  New  Orleans,  passed  from  Spanish 
into  British  hands.  The  whole  country  north  of 
Florida  and  east  of  the  Mississippi  river,  includ 
ing  Canada,  was  now  English.  A  strong  combi 
nation  of  Indian  tribes,  chiefly  Algonquin,  under 
the  lead  of  the  Ottawa  sachem  Pontiac,  made  a 
last  desperate  attempt,  after  the  loss  of  their 
French  allies,  to  cripple  the  English ; 
but  by  1765.  after  many  harrowing  of  the 

J  '  J  to     French  pow- 

scenes  ot  bloodshed,  these  red  men  were  er  in  Ame» 
crushed.  There  was  no  power  left  that 
could  threaten  the  peace  of  the  thirteen  colonies 
unless  it  were  the  mother-country  herself.  "  Well," 
said  the  French  minister,  the  Duke  de  Choiseul, 
as  he  signed  the  treaty  that  shut  France  out  of 
North  America,  "  so  we  are  gone ;  it  will  be  Eng 
land's  turn  next !  "  And  like  a  prudent  seeker 
after  knowledge,  as  he  was,  the  Duke  presently 


38  THE   WAR   Oh'  INDEPENDENCE. 

bethought  him  of  an  able  and  high-minded  man, 
the  Baron  de  Kalb,  and  sent  him  in  1767  to  Amer 
ica,  to  look  about  and  see  if  there  were  not  good 
grounds  for  his  bold  prophecy. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  STAMP  ACT,  AND  THE  REVENUE  LAWS. 

IT  did  not  take  four  years  after  the  peace  of 
1763  to  show  how  rapidly  the  new  situation  of 
affairs  was  bearing  fruit  in  America.  The  war 
had  taught  its  lessons.  Earlier  wars  had  men 
aced  portions  of  the  frontier,  and  had  been  fought 
by  single  colonies  or  alliances  of  two  or  three. 
This  war  had  menaced  the  whole  frontier,  and  the 
colonies,  acting  for  the  first  time  in  general  con 
cert,  had  acquired  some  dim  notion  of  their  united 
strength.  Soldiers  and  officers  by  and  by  to  be 
arrayed  against  one  another  had  here  fought  as 
allies,  —  John  Stark  and  Israel  Putnam  by  the 
side  of  William  Howe ;  Horatio  Gates  by  the 
side  of  Thomas  Gage,  —  and  it  had  not  always 
been  the  regulars  that  bore  off  the  palm  for  skill 
and  endurance.  One  young  man,  of  immense 
energy  and  fiery  temper,  united  to  rare  prudence 
and  fertility  of  resource,  had  .already  become 
famous  enough  to  be  talked  about  in  England ; 
in  George  Washington  the  Virginians  recognized 
a  tower  of  strength. 

The  overthrow  of  their  _  ancient  enemy,  while 
further  increasing  the  self-confidence  of  the  Amer- 


40  THE   WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

icans,  at  the  same  time  removed  the  principal 
check  which  had  hitherto  kept  their  differences 
with  the  British  government  from  coming  to  an 
open  rupture.  Formerly  the  dread  of  French  at 
tack  had  tended  to  make  the  Americans  complai- 
Conse-  sant  toward  the  king's  ministers,  while 
the  g?eat°f  at  tne  same  time  it  made  the  king's  min- 

French  War.   isterg  unwiUing    to  lose    the    good  will  of 

the  Americans.  Now  that  the  check  was  removed, 
the  continuance  or  revival  of  the  old  disputes  at 
once  foreboded  trouble  ;  and  the  old  occasions  for 
dispute  were  far  from  having  ceased.  On  the 
contrary  the  war  itself  had  given  them  fresh  vital 
ity.  If  money  had  been  needed  before,  it  was 
still  more  needed  now.  The  war  had  entailed  a 
heavy  burden  of  expense  upon  the  British  gov 
ernment  as  well  as  upon  the  colonies.  The  na 
tional  debt  of  Great  Britain  was  much  increased, 
and  there  were  many  who  thought  that,  since  the 
Americans  shared  in  the  benefits  of  the  war  they 
ought  also  to  share  in  the  burden  which  it  left 
behind  it.  People  in  England  who  used  this  ar 
gument  did  not  realize  that  the  Americans  had 
really  contributed  as  much  as  could  reasonably  be 
expected  to  the  support  of  the  war,  and  that  it 
had  left  behind  it  debts  to  be  paid  in  America 
as  well  as  in  England.  .But  there  was  another 
argument  which  made  it  seem  reasonable  to  many 
Englishmen  that  the  colonists  should  be  taxed. 
It  seemed  right  that  a  small  military  force  should 


THE  STAMP  ACT,  AND  REVENUE  LAWS.    41 

be  kept  up  in  America,  for  defence  of  the  fron 
tiers  against  the  Indians,  even  if  there  were  no 
other  enemies  to  be  dreaded.  The  events  of  Pon- 
tiac's  war  now  showed  that  there  was  clearly  need 
of  such  a  force ;  and  the  experience  of  the  royal 
governors  for  half  a  century  had  shown  that  it 
was  very  difficult  to  get  the  colonial  legislatures 
to  vote  money  for  any  such  purpose.  Hence  there 
grew  up  in  England  a  feeling  that  taxes 
ought  to  be  raised  in  America  as  a  con-  steady  rev- 

.  enue. 

tribution  to  the  war  debt  and  to  the 
military  defence  of  the  colonies;  and  in  order 
that  such  taxes  should  be  fairly  distributed  and 
promptly  collected,  it  was  felt  that  the  whole  busi 
ness  ought  to  be  placed  under  the  direct  super 
vision  and  control  of  parliament.  In  accordance 
with  this  feeling  the  new  prime  minister,  George 
Grenville  in  1764  announced  his  intention  of 
passing  a  Stamp  Act  for  the  easier  collection  of 
revenue  in  America.  Meanwhile  things  had  hap 
pened  in  America  which  had  greatly  irritated  the 
people,  especially  in  Boston,  so  that  they  were  in 
the  mood  for  resisting  anything  that  looked  like 
encroachment  on  the  part  of  the  British  govern 
ment.  To  understand  this  other  source  of  irrita 
tion,  we  must  devote  a  few  words  to  the  laws  by 
which  that  government  had  for  a  long  time  un 
dertaken  to  regulate  the  commerce  of  the  Amer 
ican  colonies. 


42  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

When  European  nations  began  to  plant  colo 
nies  in  America,  they  treated  them  in  accordance 
with  a  theory  which  prevailed  until  it  was  upset 
by  the  American  Revolution.  According  to  this 
ignorant  and  barbarous  theory,  a  colony  was  a 
community  which  existed  only  for  the  purpose 
of  enriching  the  country  which  had  founded  it. 
At  the  outset,  the  Spanish  notion  of  a  colony  was 
that  of  a  military  station,  which  might  plunder 
the  heathen  for  the  benefit  of  the  hungry  treas 
ury  of  the  Most  Catholic  monarch.  But  this 
theory  was  short-lived,  like  the  enjoyment  of  the 
plunder  which  it  succeeded  in  extorting.  Accord 
ing  to  the  principles  and  practice  of  France  and 
England  —  and  of  Spain  also,  after  the  first 
romantic  fury  of  buccaneering  had  spent  itself  — 
What  Euro-  ^ne  great  object  in  founding  a  colony, 
SeTweJST  besides  increasing  one's  general  impor- 
bepfou8nded0  tance  in  the  world  and  the  area  of  one's 
dominions  on  the  map,  was  to  create  a 
dependent  community  for  the  purpose  of  trading 
A*dth  it.  People's  ideas  about  trade  were  very 
absurd.  It  was  not  understood  that  when  two 
parties  trade  with  each  other  freely,  both  must 
be  gainers,  or  else  one  would  soon  stop  trading. 
It  was  supposed  that  in  trade,  just  as  in  gambling 
or  betting,  what  the  one  party  gains  the  other 
loses.  Accordingly  laws  were  made  to  regulate 
trade  so  that,  as  far  as  possible,  all  the  loss  might 
fall  upon  the  colonies  and  all  the  gain  accrue  to 


THE  STAMP  ACT,  AND  REVENUE  LAWS.    43 

the  mother-country.  In  order  to  attain  this  ob 
ject,  the  colonies  were  required  to  confine  their 
trade  entirely  to  England.  No  American  colony 
could  send  its  tobacco  or  its  rice  or  its  indigo  to 
France  or  to  Holland,  or  to  any  other  country 
than  England  ;  nor  could  it  buy  a  yard  of  French 
silk  or  a  pound  of  Chinese  tea  except  from  Eng 
lish  merchants.  In  this  way  English  merchants 
sought  to  secure  for  themselves  a  monopoly  of 
purchases  and  a  monopoly  of  sales.  By  a  fur 
ther  provision,  although  American  ships  might 
take  goods  to  England,  the  carrying  -  trade  be 
tween  the  different  colonies  was  strictly  confined 
to  British  ships.  Next,  in  order  to  protect  British 
manufacturers  from  competition,  it  was  thought 
necessary  to  prohibit  the  colonists  from  manufac 
turing.  They  might  grow  wool,  but  it  must  be 
carried  to  England  to  be  woven  into  cloth ;  they 
might  smelt  iron,  but  it  must  be  carried  to  Eng 
land  to  be  made  into  ploughshares.  Finally,  in 
order  to  protect  British  farmers  and  their  land 
lords,  corn-laws  were  enacted,  putting  a  prohibi 
tory  tariff  on  all  kinds  of  grain  and  other  farm 
produce  shipped  from  the  colonies  to  ports  in 
Great  Britain. 

Such  absurd  and  tyrannical  laws  had  begun  to 
be  made  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II.,  and  by  1750 
not  less  than  twenty-nine  acts  of  parliament  had 
been  passed  in  this  spirit.  If  these  laws  had 
been  strictly  enforced,  the  American  Revolution 


44  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

would  probably  have  come  sooner  than  it  did.  In 
point  of  fact  they  were  seldom  strictly  enforced, 
because  so  long  as  the  French  were  a  power  in 
America  the  British  government  felt  that  it  could 
not  afford  to  irritate  the  colonists.  In  spite  of 
laws  to  the  contrary,  the  carrying-trade  between 
the  different  colonies  was  almost  monopolized  by 
vessels  owned,  built,  and  manned  in  New  Eng 
land  ;  and  the  smuggling  of  foreign  goods  into 
Boston  and  New  York  and  other  seaport  towns 
was  winked  at. 

It  was  in  1761,  immediately  after  the  over 
throw  of  the  French  in  Canada,  that  attempts 
were  made  to  enforce  the  revenue  laws  more 
strictly  than  heretofore  ;  and  trouble  was  at  once 
threatened.  Charles  Paxton,  the  principal  officer 
of  the  custom-house  in  Boston,  applied  to  the 
Writs  of  Superior  Court  to  grant  him  the  author- 
assistance.  jtv  to  use  «writs  of  assistance"  in 
searching  for  smuggled  goods.  A  writ  of  assist 
ance  was  a  general  search-warrant,  empowering 
the  officer  armed  with  it  to  enter,  by  force  if 
necessary,  any  dwelling-house  or  warehouse  where 
contraband  goods  were  supposed  to  be  stored  or 
hidden.  A  special  search-warrant  was  one  in 
which  the  name  of  the  suspected  person,  and  the 
house  which  it  was  proposed  to  search,  were  ac 
curately  specified,  and  the  goods  which  it  was 
intended  to  seize  were  as  far  as  possible  described. 
In  the  use  of  such  special  warrants  there  was  not 


THE  STAMP  ACT,  AND   REVENUE  LAWS.    45 

much  danger  of  gross  injustice  or  oppression, 
because  the  court  would  not  be  likely  to  grant 
one  unless  strong  evidence  could  be  brought 
against  the  person  whom  it  named.  But  the 
general  search-warrant,  or  "  writ  of  assistance," 
as  it  was  called  because  men  try  to  cover  up  the 
ugliness  of  hateful  things  by  giving  them  inno 
cent  names,  was  quite  a  different  affair.  It  was 
a  blank  form  upon  which  the  custom-house  officer 
might  fill  in  the  names  of  persons  and  descrip 
tions  of  houses  and  goods  to  suit  himself.  Then 
he  could  go  and  break  into  the  houses  and  seize 
the  goods,  and  if  need  be  summon  the  sheriff  and 
Ins  posse  to  help  him  in  overcoming  and  brow 
beating  the  owner.  The  writ  of  assistance  was 
therefore  an  abominable  instrument  of  tyranny. 
Such  writs  had  been  allowed  by  a  statute  of  the 
evil  reign  of  Charles  II. ;  a  statute  of  William 
III.  had  clothed  custom-house  officers  in  the  col 
onies  with  like  powers  to  those  which  they  pos 
sessed  in  England  ;  and  neither  of  these  statutes 
had  been  repealed.  There  can  therefore  be  little 
doubt  that  the  issue  of  such  search-warrants  was 
strictly  legal,  unless  the  authority  of  Parliament 
to  make  laws  for  the  colonies  was  to  be  denied. 

James  Otis  then  held  the  crown  office  of  advo 
cate-general,  with  an  ample  salary  and 

£    ,  .    ,      £  l  £  James  Otis. 

prospects  of  high  favour  from    govern 
ment.  When  the  revenue  officers  called  upon  him, 
in  view  of  his  position,  to  defend  their  cause,  he 


46  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

resigned  his  office  and  at  once  undertook  to  act 
as  counsel  for  the  merchants  of  Boston  in  their 
protest  against  the  issue  of  the  writs.  A  large 
fee  was  offered  him,  but  he  refused  it.  "  In  such 
a  cause,"  said  he,  "  I  despise  all  fees."  The  case 
was  tried  in  the  council-chamber  at  the  east  end 
of  the  old  town-hall,  or  what  is  now  known  as 
the  "  Old  State-House,"  in  Boston.  Chief-justice 
Hutchinson  presided,  and  Jeremiah  Gridley,  one 
of  the  greatest  lawyers  of  that  day,  argued  the 
case  for  the  writs  in  a  very  powerful  speech.  The 
reply  of  Otis,  which  took  five  hours  in  the  deliv 
ery,  was  one  of  the  greatest  speeches  of  modern 
times.  It  went  beyond  the  particular  legal  ques 
tion  at  issue,  and  took  up  the  whole  question  of 
the  constitutional  relations  between  the  colonies 
and  the  mother-country.  At  the  bottom  of  this, 
as  of  all  the  disputes  that  led  to  the  Revolution, 
lay  the  ultimate  question  whether  Americans  were 
bound  to  yield  obedience  to  laws  which  they  had 
no  share  in  making.  This  question,  and  the  spirit 
that  answered  it  flatly  and  doggedly  in  the  nega 
tive,  were  heard  like  an  undertone  pervading  all 
the  arguments  in  Otis's  wonderful  speech,  and  it 
was  because  of  this  that  the  young  lawyer  John 
Adams,  who  was  present,  afterward  declared  that 
on  that  day  "  the  child  Independence  was  born." 
Chief-justice  Hutchinson  was  a  man  of  great 
ability  and  as  sincere  a  patriot  as  any  American 
of  his  time.  He  could  feel  the  force  of  Otis's 


THE  STAMP  ACT,  AND  REVENUE  LAWS.    47 

argument,  but  he  believed  that  Parliament  was 
the  supreme  legislative  body  for  the  whole  Brit 
ish  empire,  and  furthermore  that  it  was  the  duty 
of  a  judge  to  follow  the  law  as  it  existed.  He 
reserved  his  decision  until  advice  could  be  had 
from  the  law-officers  of  the  crown  in  London ; 
and  when  next  term  he  was  instructed  by  them  to 
grant  the  writs,  this  result  added,  fresh  impetus 
to  the  spirit  that  Otis's  eloquence  had  aroused. 
The  custom-house  officers,  armed  with  their  writs, 
began  breaking  into  warehouses  and  seizing  goods 
which  were  said  to  have  been  smuggled.  In  this 
rough  way  they  confiscated  private  property  to 
the  value  of  many  thousands  of  pounds ;  but 
sometimes  the  owners  of  warehouses  armed  them 
selves  and  barricaded  their  doors  and  windows, 
and  thus  the  officers  were  often  successfully  de 
fied,  for  the  sheriff  was  far  from  prompt  in  coin 
ing  to  aid  them. 

While  such  things  were  going  on  in  Boston,  the 
people  of  Virginia  were  wrought  into  fierce  excite 
ment  by  what  was  known  as  the  "  Parsons'  Cause." 
The  Church  of  England  was  at  that  time  estab 
lished  by  law  in  Virginia,  and  its  clergymen,  ap 
pointed  by  English  bishops,  were  unpopular.  In 
1758  the  legislature,  under  the  pressure  of  the 
French  war,  had  passed  an  act  which  affected  all 
public  dues  and  incidentally  diminished  the  sal 
aries  of  the  clergy.  Complaints  were  made  to  the 
Bishop  of  London,  and  the  act  of  1758  was  vetoed 


48  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

by  the  king  in  council.  Several  clergymen  then 
Patrick  brought  suits  to  recover  the  unpaid  por- 
tbeTa'rsW  tions  of  their  salaries.  In  the  first  test 
case  there  could  be  no  doubt  that  the 
royal  veto  was  legal  enough,  and  the  court  there 
fore  decided  in  favour  of  the  plaintiff.  But  it 
now  remained  to  settle  before  a  jury  the  amount 
of  the  damages.  It  was  on  this  occasion,  in  De 
cember,  1763,  that  the  great  orator  Patrick  Henry 
made  his  first  speech  in  the  court-room  and  at 
once  became  famous.  He  declared  that  no  power 
on  earth  could  take  away  from  Virginia  the  right 
to  make  laws  for  herself,  and  that  in  annulling  a 
wholesome  law  at  the  request  of  a  favoured  class 
in  the  community  "  a  king,  from  being  the  father 
of  his  people,  degenerates  into  a  tyrant,  and  for 
feits  all  right  to  obedience."  This  bold  talk 
aroused  much  excitement  and  some  uproar,  but 
the  jury  instantly  responded  by  assessing  the  par 
son's  damages  at  one  penny,  and  in  1765  Henry 
was  elected  a  member  of  the  colonial  assembly. 

Thus  almost  at  the  same  time  in  Massachusetts 
and  in  Virginia  the  preliminary  scenes  of  the  Rev 
olution  occurred  in  the  court-room.  In  each 
case  the  representatives  of  the  crown  had  the  let 
ter  of  the  law  on  their  side,  but  the  principles  of 
the  only  sound  public  policy,  by  which  a  Revolu 
tion  could  be  avoided,  were  those  that  were  de 
fended  by  the  advocates  of  the  people.  At  each 
successive  move  on  the  part  of  the  British  govern- 


THE  STAMP  ACT,   AND  REVENUE  LAWS.    49 

ment  which  looked  like  an  encroachment  upon 
the  rights  of  Americans,  the  sympathy  between 
these  two  leading  colonies  now  grew  stronger  and 
stronger. 

It  was  in  1763  that  George  Grenville  became 
prime  minister,  a  man  of  whom  Macaulay  says 
that  he  knew  of  "  no  national  interests  except 
those  which  are  expressed  by  pounds,  shillings, 
and  pence."  Grenville  proceeded  to  introduce 
into  Parliament  two  measures  which  had  conse 
quences  of  which  he  little  dreamed.  The  first  of 
these  measures  was  the  Molasses  Act,  the  second 
was  the  Stamp  Act. 

Properly  speaking,  'the  Molasses  Act  was  an 
old  law  which  Grenville  now  made  up  his  mind  to 
revive  and  enforce.  The  commercial  wealth  of 
the  New  England  colonies  depended  largely  upon 
their  trade  with  the  fish  which  their  fishermen 
caught  along  the  coast  and  as  far  out  as  the  banks 
of  Newfoundland.  The  finest  fish  could  be  sold 
in  Europe,  but  the  poorer  sort  found  their  chief 
market  in  the  French  West  Indies.  The  The  Molas_ 
French  government,  in  order  to  ensure  s 
a  market  for  the  molasses  raised  in  these  islands, 
would  not  allow  the  planters  to  give  anything  elso 
in  exchange  for  fish.  Great  quantities  of  molas 
ses  were  therefore  carried  to  New  England,  and 
what  was  not  needed  there  for  domestic  use  was 
distilled  into  rum,  part  of  which  was  consumed  at 
home,  and  the  rest  carried  chiefly  to  Africa  where- 


50  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

with  to  buy  slaves  to  be  sold  to  the  southern  col 
onies.  All  this  trade  required  many  ships,  and 
thus  kept  up  a  lively  demand  for  New  England 
lumber,  besides  finding  employment  for  thousands 
of  sailors  and  shipwrights.  Now  in  1733  the 
British  government  took  it  into  its  head  to  "  pro 
tect  "  its  sugar  planters  in  the  English  West  In 
dies  by  compelling  the  New  England  merchants 
to  buy  all  their  molasses  from  them  ;  and  with 
this  end  in  view  it  forthwith  laid  upon  all  sugar 
and  molasses  imported  into  North  America  from 
the  French  islands  a  duty  so  heavy  that,  if  it  had 
been  enforced,  it  would  have  stopped  all  such 
importation.  It  is  very  doubtful  if  this  measure 
would  have  attained  the  end  which  the  British 
government  had  in  view.  Probably  it  would  not 
have  made  much  difference  in  the  export  of 
molasses  from  the  English  West  Indies  to  New 
England,  because  the  islanders  happened  not  to 
want  the  fish  which  their  French  neighbours 
coveted.  But  the  New  Englanders  could  see  that 
the  immediate  result  would  be  to  close  the  market 
for  their  cheaper  kinds  of  fish,  and  thus  ruin  their 
trade  in  lumber  and  rum,  besides  shutting  up 
many  a  busy  shipyard  and  turning  more  than 
5000  sailors  out  of  employment.  It  was  estimated 
that  the  yearly  loss  to  New  England  would  ex 
ceed  £300,000.  It  was  hardly  wise  in  Great 
Britain  to  entail  such  a  loss  upon  some  of  her 
best  customers ;  for  with  their  incomes  thus  cut 


THE  STAMP  ACT,  AND  REVENUE  LAWS.    51 

down,  it  was  not  to  be  expected  that  the  people  of 
New  England  would  be  able  to  buy  as  many  farm 
ing  tools,  dishes,  and  pieces  of  furniture,  garments 
of  silk  or  wool,  and  wines  or  other  luxuries,  from 
British  merchants  as  before.  The  government  in 
passing  its  act  of  1733  did  not  think  of  these 
consequences  ;  but  it  proved  to  be  impossible  to 
enforce  the  act  without  causing  more  disturbance 
than  the  government  felt  prepared  to  encounter. 
Now  in  1764  Grenville  -announced  that  the  act 
was  to  be  enforced,  and  of  course  the  machinery 
of  writs  of  assistance  was  to  be  employed  for 
that  purpose.  Henceforth  all  molasses  from  the 
French  islands  must  either  pay  the  prohibitory 
duty  or  be  seized  without  ceremony. 

Loud  and  fierce  was  the  indignation  of  New 
England  over  this  revival  of  the  Molasses  Act. 
Even  without  the  Stamp  Act,  it  might  very  likely 
have  led  that  part  of  the  country  to  make  armed 
resistance,  but  in  such  case  it  is  not  so  sure  that 
the  southern  and  middle  colonies  would  have 
come  to  the  aid  of  New  England.  But  in  the 
Stamp  Act  Grenville  provided  the  colonies  with 
an  issue  which  concerned  one  as  much  as  another, 
and  upon  which  they  were  accordingly  sure  to 
unite  in  resistance.  It  was  also  a  much  better 
issue  for  the  Americans  to  take  up,  for  it  was  not 
a  mere  revival  of  an  old  act ;  it  was  a  new  depart 
ure  ;  it  was  an  imposition  of  a  kind  to  which 
the  Americans  had  never  before  been  called  upon 


52  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

to  submit,  and  in  resisting  it  they  were  sure  to 
enlist  the  sympathies  of  a  good  many  powerful 
people  in  England. 

The  Stamp  Act  was  a  direct  tax  laid  upon  the 
whole  American  people  by  Parliament,  a  legisla 
tive  body  in  which  they  were  not  represented. 
The  British  government  had  no  tyrannical  pur 
pose  in  devising  this  tax.,  A  stamp  duty  had 
The  stamp  already  been  suggested  in  1755  by  Wil 
liam  Shirley,  royal  governor  of  Massa 
chusetts,  a  worthy  man  and  much  more  of  a  fa 
vourite  with  the  people  than  most  of  his  class. 
Shirley  recommended  it  as  the  least  disagreeable 
kind  of  tax,  and  the  easiest  to  collect.  It  did  not 
call  for  any  hateful  searching  of  people's  houses 
and  shops,  or  any  unpleasant  questions  about 
their  incomes,  or  about  their  invested  or  hoarded 
wealth.  It  only  required  that  legal  documents 
and  commercial  instruments  should  be  written, 
and  newspapers  printed,  on  stamped  paper.  Of 
all  kinds  of  direct  tax  none  can  be  less  annoying, 
except  for  one  reason ;  it  is  exceedingly  difficult 
to  evade  such  a  tax  ;  it  enforces  itself.  For  these 
reasons  Grenville  decided  to  adopt  it.  He  ar 
ranged  it  so  that  all  the  officers  charged  with  the 
business  of  selling  the  stamped  paper  should  be 
Americans  ;  and  he  gave  formal  notice  of  the 
measure  in  March,  1764,  a  year  beforehand,  in 
order  to  give  the  colonies  time  to  express  their 
opinions  about  it. 


THE  STAMP  ACT,  AND  REVENUE  LAWS.    53 

In  the  Boston  town-meeting  in  May,  almost  as 
soon  as  the  news  had  arrived,  the  American  view 
of  the  case  was  very  clearly  set  forth  in  a  series 
of  resolutions  drawn  up  by  Samuel  Adams.  This 
was  the  first  of  the  remarkable  state  papers  from 
the  pen  of  that  great  man,  who  now,  at  Samuel 
the  age  of  forty-two,  was  just  entering  Adams- 
upon  a  glorious  career.  Samuel  Adams  was  a 
graduate  of  Harvard  College  in  the  class  of  1740. 
He  had  been  reared  in  politics  from  boyhood,  for 
his  father,  a  deacon  of  the  Old  South  Church,  had 
been  chief  spokesman  of  the  popular  party  in  its 
disputes  with  the  royal  governors.  Of  all  the 
agencies  in  organizing  resistance  to  Great  Britain 
none  were  more  powerful  than  the  New  England 
town-meetings,  among  which  that  of  the  people  of 
Boston  stood  preeminent,  and  in  the  Boston  town- 
meeting  for  more  than  thirty  years  no  other  man 
exerted  so  much  influence  as  Samuel  Adams. 
This  was  because  of  his  keen  intelligence  and  per 
suasive  talk,  his  spotless  integrity,  indomitable 
courage,  unselfish  and  unwearying  devotion  to  the 
public  good,  and  broad  sympathy  with  all  classes 
of  people.  He  was  a  thorough  democrat.  He 
respected  the  dignity  of  true  manhood  wherever 
he  found  it,  and  could  talk  with  sailors  and  ship 
wrights  like  one  of  themselves,  while  at  the  same 
time  in  learned  argument  he  had  few  superiors. 
He  has  been  called  the  "  Father  of  the  Ee volu 
tion."  and  was  no  doubt  its  most  conspicuous 


54  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

figure  before  1775,  as  Washington  certainly  was 
after  that  date. 

This  earliest  state  paper  of  Samuel  Adams  con 
tained  the  first  formal  and  public  denial  of  the 
right  of  Parliament  to  tax  the  colonies,  because 
it  was  not  a  body  in  which  their  people  were  rep 
resented.  The  resolutions  were  adopted  by  the 
Massachusetts  assembly,  and  a  similar  action  was 
taken  by  Connecticut,  New  York,  Pennsylvania, 
Virginia,  and  South  Carolina.  The  colonies  pro 
fessed  their  willingness  to  raise  money  in  answer 
to  requisitions  upon  their  assemblies,  which  were 
the  only  bodies  competent  to  lay  taxes  in  Amer 
ica.  Memorials  stating  these  views  were  sent  to 
England,  and  the  colony  of  Pennsylvania  sent  Dr. 
Franklin  to  represent  its  case  at  the  British  court. 
Franklin  remained  in  London  until  the  spring  of 
1775  as  agent  first  for  Pennsylvania,  afterward 
for  Massachusetts,  New  Jersey,  and  Georgia,  —  a 
kind  of  diplomatic  representative  of  the  views  and 
claims  of  the  Americans. 

Grenville  told  Franklin  that  he  wished  to  do 
things  as  pleasantly  as  possible,  and  was  not  dis 
posed  to  insist  upon  the  Stamp  Act,  if  the  Ameri 
cans  could  suggest  anything  better.  But  when  it 
appeared  that  no  alternative  was  offered  except  to 
fall  back  upon  the  old  clumsy  system  of  requisi 
tions,  Grenville  naturally  replied  that  there  ought 
to  be  some  more  efficient  method  of  raising  money 
for  the  defence  of  the  frontier.  Accordingly  in 


THE  STAMP  ACT,  AND  REVENUE  LAWS.    55 

March,  1765,  the  Stamp  Act  was  passed,  with  so 
little  debate  that  people  hardly  noticed  what  was 
going  on.  But  when  the  news  reached  America 
there  was  an  outburst  of  wrath  that  was  soon 
heard  and  felt  in  London.  In  May  the  Virginia 
legislature  was  assembled.  George  Washington 
was  sitting  there  in  his  seat,  and  Thomas  Jeffer 
son,  then  a  law-student,  was  listening  eagerly  from 
outside  the  door,  when  Patrick  Henry  introduced 
the  famous  resolutions  in  which  he  de- 

,,  .  ,,  The  Virginia 

clared,  among  other  things,  that  an  at-  Resolutions, 
tempt  to  vest  the  power  of  taxation  in 
any  other  body  than  the  colonial  assembly  was  a 
menace  to  the  common  freedom  of  Englishmen, 
whether  in  Britain  or  in  America,  and  that  the 
people  of  Virginia  were  not  bound  to  obey  any 
law  enacted  in  disregard  of  this  principle.  The 
language  of  the  resolutions  was  bold  enough,  but 
a  keener  edge  was  put  upon  it  by  the  defiant  note 
which  rang  out  from  Henry  in  the  course  of  the 
debate,  when  he  commended  the  example  of  Tar- 
quin  and  Caesar  and  Charles  I.  to  the  attention  of 
George  III.  u  If  this  be  treason,"  he  exclaimed, 
as  the  speaker  tried  to  call  him  to  order,  "  if  this 
be  treason,  make  the  most  of  it !  " 

The  other  colonies  were  not  slow  in  acting. 
Massachusetts  called  for  a  general  congress,  in 
order  that  all  might  discuss  the  situation  and 
agree  upon  some  course  to  be  pursued  in  common. 
South  Carolina  responded  most  cordially,  at  the 


56  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

instance  of  her  noble,  learned,  and  far-sighted 
patriot,  Christopher  Gadsden.  On  the  7th  of 
October,  delegates  from  nine  colonies  met  in  a 
congress  at  New  York,  adopted  resolutions  like 
those  of  Virginia,  and  sent  a  memorial  to  the 
king,  whose  sovereignty  over  them  they  admitted, 
and  a  remonstrance  to  Parliament,  whose  authority 
to  tax  them  they  denied.  The  meeting  of  this 
congress  was  in  itself  a  prophecy  of  what  was  to 
happen  if  the  British  government  should  persist 
in  the  course  upon  which  it  had  now  entered. 

Meanwhile  the  summer  had  witnessed  riots  in 
many  places,  and  one  of  these  was  extremely  dis 
graceful.  Chief-justice  Hutchinson  had  tried  to 
dissuade  the  ministry  from  passing  the  Stamp 
Act,  but  an  impression  had  got  abroad  among  the 
wharves  and  waterside  taverns  of  Boston  that  he 
had  not  only  favoured  it  but  had  gone  out  of  his 
way  to  send  information  to  London,  naming  cer 
tain  merchants  as  smugglers.  Under  the  influ 
ence  of  this  mistaken  notion,  on  the  night  of  the 
s^ampAct  26th  of  August  a  drunken  mob  plun- 
riots.  dered  Hutchinson's  house  in  Boston 

and  destroyed  his  library,  which  was  probably  the 
finest  in  America  at  that  time.  Here,  as  is  apt 
to  be  the  case,  the  mob  selected  the  wrong  victim. 
Its  shameful  act  was  denounced  by  the  people  of 
Massachusetts,  and  the  chief-justice  was  indem 
nified  by  the  legislature.  In  the  other  instances 
the  riots  were  of  an  innocent  sort.  Stamp  officers 


THE  STAMP  ACT,  AND  REVENUE  LAWS.    57 

were  forced  to  resign.  Boxes  of  stamped  paper 
arriving  by  ship  were  burned  or  thrown  into  the 
sea,  and  at  length  the  governor  of  New  York  was 
compelled  by  a  mob  to  surrender  all  the  stamps 
entrusted  to  his  care.  These  things  were  done  for 
the  most  part  under  the  direction  of  societies  of 
workingmen  known  as  "  Sons  of  Liberty,"  who 
were  pledged  to  resist  the  execution  of  the  Stamp 
Act.  At  the  same  time  associations  of  merchants 
declared  that  they  would  buy  no  more  goods  from 
England  until  the  act  should  be  repealed,  and 
lawyers  entered  into  agreements  not  to  treat  any 
document  as  invalidated  by  the  absence  of  the  re 
quired  stamp.  As  for  the  editors,  they  published 
their  newspapers  decorated  with  a  grinning  skull 
and  cross-bones  instead  of  the  stamp. 

These  demonstrations  produced  their  effect  in 
England.  In  July,  1765,  the  Grenville  ministry 
fell,  and  the  new  government,  with  Lord  Rock- 
ingham  at  its  head,  was  more  inclined  to  pay  heed 
to  the  wishes  and  views  of  the  Americans.  The 
debate  over  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act  Repeal  of  the 
lasted  nearly  three  months  and  was  one  8tamp  Act< 
of  the  fiercest  that  had  been  heard  in  Parliament 
for  many  a  day.  William  Pitt  declared  that  he 
rejoiced  in  the  resistance  of  the  Americans,  and 
urged  that  the  act  should  be  repealed  because 
Parliament  ought  never  to  have  passed  it ;  but 
there  were  very  few  who  took  this  view.  As  the 
result  of  the  long  debate,  at  the  end  of  March, 


58  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

1766,  the  Stamp  Act  was  repealed,  and  a  De 
claratory  Act  was  passed  in  which  Parliament 
said  in  effect  that  it  had  a  right  to  make  such 
laws  for  the  Americans  if  it  chose  to  do  so. 

The  people  of  London,  as  well  as  the  Amer 
icans,  hailed  with  delight  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp 
Act ;  but  the  real  trouble  had  now  only  begun. 
The  resolutions  of  Samuel  Adams  and  Patrick 
Henry  and  their  approval  by  the  Congress  at  New 
York  had  thrown  the  question  of  American  tax 
ation  into  the  whirlpool  of  British  politics,  and 
there  it  was  to  stay  until  it  worked  a  change  for 
the  better  in  England  as  well  as  in  America. 

The  principle  that  people  must  not  be  taxed 

except  by  their  representatives  had  been  to  some 

extent  recognized  in  England  for  five  hundred 

years,  and  it  was  really  the  fundamental  principle 

of  English  liberty,  but  it  was  only  very 

How  the  J  J 

question  was    imperfectlv  that  it  had  been  put  into 

aff«otedby  .  J  . 

British  poii-  practice.  In  the  eighteenth  century  the 
House  of  Commons  was  very  far  from 
being  a  body  that  fairly  represented  the  people  of 
Great  Britain.  For  a  long  time  there  had  been 
no  change  in  the  distribution  of  seats,  and  mean 
while  the  population  had  been  increasing  very  dif 
ferently  in  different  parts  of  the  kingdom.  Thus 
great  cities  which  had  grown  up  in  recent  times, 
such  as  Sheffield  and  Manchester,  had  no  repre 
sentatives  in  Parliament,  while  many  little  bor 
oughs  with  a  handful  of  inhabitants  had  their 


THE  STAMP  ACT,  AND  REVENUE  LAWS.    59 

representatives.  Some  such  boroughs  had  been 
granted  representation  by  Henry  VIII.  in  order 
to  create  a  majority  for  his  measures  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  Others  were  simply  petty  towns 
that  had  dwindled  away,  somewhat  as  the  moun 
tain  villages  of  New  England  have  dwindled  since 
the  introduction  of  railroads.  The  famous  Old 
Sarum  had  members  in  Parliament  long  after  it 
had  ceased  to  have  any  inhabitants.  Seats  for 
these  rotten  boroughs,  as  they  were  called,  were 
simply  bought  and  sold.  Political  life  in  Eng 
land  was  exceedingly  corrupt ;  some  of  the  best 
statesmen  indulged  in  wholesale  bribery  as  if  it 
were  the  most  innocent  thing  in  the  world.  The 
country  was  really  governed  by  a  few  great  fam 
ilies,  some  of  whose  members  sat  in  the  House 
of  Lords  and  others  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
Their  measures  were  often  noble  and  patriotic  in 
the  highest  degree,  but  when  bribery  and  corrup 
tion  seemed  necessary  for  carrying  them,  such 
means  were  employed  without  scruple. 

When  George  III.  came  to  the  throne  in  1760, 
the  great  families  which  had  thus  governed  Eng. 
land  for  half  a  century  belonged  to  the  party 
known  as  Old  Whigs.  Under  their  rule  the  power 
of  the  crown  had  been  reduced  to  in 
significance,  and  the  modern  system  of  and  his  po'ut- 

,  .  .    _        ical  schemes. 

cabinet   government    by  a   responsible 
ministry  had  begun  to  grow  up.     The  Tory  fam 
ilies  during  this  period  had  been  very  unpopular, 


60  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

because  of  their  sympathy  with  the  Stuart  pre 
tenders  who  had  twice  attempted  to  seize  the 
crown  and  given  the  country  a  brief  taste  of  civil 
war.  By  1760  the  Tories  saw  that  the  cause  of 
the  Stuarts  was  hopeless,  and  so  they  were  in 
clined  to  transfer  their  affections  to  the  new  king. 
George  III.  was  a  young  man  of  narrow  intelli 
gence  and  poor  education,  but  he  entertained  very 
strong  opinions  as  to  the  importance  of  his  kingly 
office.  He  meant  to  make  himself  a  real  king, 
like  the  king  of  France  or  the  king  of  Spain.  He 
was  determined  to  break  down  the  power  of  the 
Old  Whigs  and  the  system  of  cabinet  government, 
and  as  the  Old  Whigs  had  been  growing  unpopu 
lar,  it  seemed  quite  possible,  with  the  aid  of  the 
Tories,  to  accomplish  this.  George  was  quite 
decorous  in  behaviour,  and,  although  subject  to 
fits  of  insanity  which  became  more  troublesome  in 
his  later  years,  he  had  a  fairly  good  head  for  busi 
ness.  Industrious  as  a  beaver  and  obstinate  as  a 
mule,  he  was  an  adept  in  political  trickery.  In 
the  corrupt  use  of  patronage  he  showed  himself 
able  to  beat  the  Old  Whigs  at  their  own  game, 
and  with  the  aid  of  the  Tories  he  might  well  be 
lieve  himself  capable  of  reviving  for  his  own  ben 
efit  the  lost  power  of  the  crown. 

Beside  these  two  parties  a  third  had  been  for 
some  time  growing  up  which  was  in  some  essential 
points  opposed  to  both  of  them.  This  third  party 
was  that  of  the  New  Whigs.  They  wished  to 


THE  STAMP  ACT,  AND  REVENUE   LAWS.     61 

reform  the  representation  in  Parliament  in  such 
wise  as  to  disfranchise  the  rotten  bor-  The ,» New 
ouglis  and  give  representatives  to  great  JlSneuta'Sy 
towns  like  Leeds  and  Manchester.  They  r 
held  that  it  was  contrary  to  the  principles  of  Eng 
lish  liberty  that  the  inhabitants  of  such  great 
towns  should  be  obliged  to  pay  taxes  in  pursuance 
of  laws  which  they  had  no  share  in  making.  The 
leader  of  the  New  Whigs  was  the  greatest  Eng 
lishman  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  elder  Wil 
liam  Pitt,  now  about  to  pass  into  the  House  of 
Lords  as  Earl  of  Chatham.  Their  leader  next  in 
importance,  William  Petty,  Earl  of  Shelburne, 
was  in  1765  a  young  man  of  eight-and-twenty,  and 
afterward  came  to  be  known  as  one  of  the  most 
learned  and  sagacious  statesmen  of  his  time. 
These  men  were  the  forerunners  of  the  great  lib 
eral  leaders  of  the  nineteenth  century,  such  men 
as  Russell  and  Cobden  and  Gladstone.  Their 
first  decisive  and  overwhelming  victory  was  the 
passage  of  Lord  John  Russell's  Reform  Bill  in 
1832,  but  the  agitation  for  reform  was  begun  by 
William  Pitt  in  1745,  and  his  famous  son  came 
very  near  winning  the  victory  on  that  question  in 
1782. 

Now  this  question  of  parliamentary  reform  was 
intimately  related  to  the  question  of  taxing  the 
American  colonies.  From  some  points  of  view 
they  might  be  considered  one  and  the  same  ques 
tion.  At  a  meeting  of  Presbyterian  ministers  in 


62  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

Philadelphia,  it  was  pertinently  asked,  "  Have  two 
men  chosen  to  represent  a  poor  English  borough 
that  has  sold  its  votes  to  the  highest  bidder  any 
pretence  to  say  that  they  represent  Virginia  or 
Pennsylvania  ?  And  have  four  hundred  such  fel 
lows  a  right  to  take  our  liberties  ?  "  In  Parlia 
ment,  on  the  other  hand,  as  well  as  at  London 
dinner  tables,  and  in  newspapers  and  pamphlets, 
it  was  repeatedly  urged  that  the  Americans  need 
not  make  so  much  fuss  about  being  taxed  without 
being  represented,  for  in  that  respect  they  were 
no  worse  off  than  the  people  of  Sheffield  or  Birming 
ham.  To  this  James  Otis  replied,  "  Don't  talk  to 
us  any  more  about  those  towns,  for  we  are  tired 
of  such  a  flimsy  argument.  If  they  are  not  rep 
resented,  they  ought  to  be  ; "  and  by  the  New 
Whigs  this  retort  was  greeted  with  applause. 

The  opinions  and  aims  of  the  three  different 
parties  were  reflected  in  the  long  debate  over  the 
repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act.  The  Tories  wanted  to 
have  the  act  continued  and  enforced,  and  such 
was  the  wish  of  the  king.  Both  sections  of  Whigs 
were  in  favour  of  repeal,  but  for  very  different 
reasons.  Pitt  and  the  New  Whigs,  being  advo 
cates  of  parliamentary  reform,  came  out  flatly  in 
support  of  the  principle  that  there  should  be  no 
taxation  without  representation.  Edmund  Burke 
and  the  Old  Whigs,  being  opposed  to  parliamen 
tary  reform  and  in  favour  of  keeping  things  just 
as  they  were,  could  not  adopt  such  an  argument ; 


THE  STAMP  ACT,   AXD  REVENUE  LAWS.    63 

and  accordingly  they  based  their  condemnation  of 
the  Stamp  Act  upon  grounds  of  pure  expediency. 
They  argued  that  it  was  not  worth  while,  for  the 
sake  of  a  4ittle  increase  of  revenue,  to  irritate 
three  million  people  and  run  the  risk  of  getting 
drawn  into  a  situation  from  which  there  would  be 
no  escape  except  in  either  retreating  or  fighting. 
There  was  much  practical  wisdom  in  this  Old 
Whig  argument,  and  it  was  the  one  which  pre 
vailed  when  Parliament  repealed  the  Stamp  Act 
and  expressly  stated  that  it  did  so  only  on  grounds 
of  expediency. 

There  was  one  person,  however,  who  was  far 
from  satisfied  with  this  result,  and  that  was 
George  III.  He  was  opposed  to  parliamentary 
reform  for  much  the  same  reason  that  the  Old 
Whigs  were  opposed  to  it,  because  he  felt  that  it 
threatened  him  with  political  ruin.  The 

Why  George 

Old  Whi^s  needed  the  rotten  boroughs   m.  was  ready 

'  topirkaquar- 

in  order  to  maintain  their  own  control   r.01  wi!h  the 

Americans. 

over  Parliament  and  the  country.  The 
king  needed  them  because  he  felt  himself  able  to 
wrest  them  from  the  Old  Whigs  by  intrigue  and 
corruption,  and  thus  hoped  to  build  up  his  own 
power.  He  believed,  with  good  reason,  that  the 
suppression  of  the  rotten  boroughs  and  the  grant 
ing  of  fair  and  equal  representation  would  soon 
put  a  stronger  curb  upon  the  crown  than  ever. 
Accordingly  there  were  no  men  whom  he  dreaded 
and  wished  to  put  down  so  much  as  the  New 


64  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

Whigs  ;  and  he  felt  that  in  the  repeal  of  the 
Stamp  Act,  no  matter  on  what  ground,  they  had 
come  altogether  too  near  winning  a  victory.  lie 
felt  that  this  outrageous  doctrine  that  people  must 
not  be  taxed  except  by  their  representatives 
needed  to  be  sternly  rebuked,  and  thus  he  found 
himself  in  the  right  sort  of  temper  for  picking  a 
fresh  quarrel  with  the  Americans. 

An  occasion  soon  presented  itself.  One  of  the 
king's  devices  for  breaking  down  the  system  of 
cabinet  government  was  to  select  his  ministers 
from  different  parties,  so  that  they  might  be  un 
able  to  work  harmoniously  together.  Owing  to 
the  peculiar  divisions  of  parties  in  Parliament  he 
was  for  some  years  able  to  carry  out  this  policy, 
and  while  his  cabinets  were  thus  weak  and  di 
vided,  he  was  able  to  use  his  control  of  patronage 
with  telling  effect.  In  July,  176G,  he  got  rid  of 
Lord  Rockingham  and  his  Old  Whigs,  and  formed 
a  new  ministry  made  up  from  all  parties.  It  con 
tained  Pitt,  who  had  now,  as  Earl  of  Chatham, 
gone  into  the  House  of  Lords,  and  at  the  same 
time  Charles  Townshend,  as  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer.  Townshend,  a  brilliant  young  man, 
without  any  political  principles  worth  mentioning, 
was  the  most  conspicuous  among  a  group  of  wire 
pullers  who  were  coming  to  be  known  as  "the 
king's  friends."  Serious  illness  soon  kept  Chatham 
at  home,  and  left  Townshend  all-powerful  in  the 
cabinet,  because  he  was  bold  and  utterly  unscru- 


THE  STAMP  ACT,  AND  REVENUE  LAWS.    65 

pulous  and  had  the  king  to  back  him.  His  auda 
city  knew  no  limits,  and  he  made  up  his  mind  that 
the  time  had  come  for  gathering  all  the  disputed 
American  questions,  as  far  as  possible,  into  one 
bundle,  and  disposing  of  them  once  for  all.  So  in 
May,  1767,  he  brought  forward  in  Par- 

•7'  fc  t  Charles 

liament  a  series  of  acts  for  raising  and  Townshend 

0  and  his  rev- 

applying  a  revenue  in  America.  The  ®^act8' 
colonists,  he  said,  had  objected  to  a  di 
rect  tax,  but  they  had  often  submitted  to  port 
duties,  and  could  not  reasonably  refuse  to  do  so 
again.  Duties  were  accordingly  to  be  laid  on 
glass,  paper,  lead,  and  painter's  colours  ;  on  wine, 
oil,  and  fruits,  if  carried  directly  to  America  from 
Spain  and  Portugal ;  and  especially  on  tea.  A 
board  of  commissioners  was  to  be  established  at 
Boston,  to  superintend  the  collection  of  revenue 
throughout  the  colonies,  and  writs  of  assistance 
were  to  be  expressly  legalized.  The  salaries  of 
these  commissioners  were  to  be  paid  out  of  the 
revenue  thus  collected.  Governors,  judges,  and 
crown-attorneys  were  to  be  made  independent  of 
the  colonial  legislatures  by  having  their  salaries 
paid  by  the  crown  out  of  this  same  fund.  A 
small  army  was  also  to  be  kept  up  ;  and  if  after 
providing  for  these  various  expenses,  any  sur 
plus  remained,  it  could  be  used  by  the  crown  in 
giving  pensions  to  Americans  and  thus  be  made  to 
serve  as  a  corruption-fund.  These  measures  were 
adopted  on  the  29th  of  June,  and  as  if  to  refute 


66  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

anybody  who  might  be  inclined  to  think  that  rash 
ness  could  no  further  go,  Townshend  accompanied 
them  with  a  special  act  directed  against  the  New 
York  legislature,  which  had  refused  to  obey  an 
order  concerning  the  quartering  of  troops.  By 
way  of  punishment,  Townshend  now  suspended 
the  legislature.  A  few  weeks  after  carrying 
these  measures  Townshend  died  of  a  fever,  and  his 
place  was  taken  by  Lord  North,  eldest 

Lord  North.       L  J 

son  of  the  Earl  of  Guilford.  North  was 
thirty-five  years  of  age.  He  was  amiable  and 
witty,  and  an  excellent  debater,  but  without  force 
of  will.  He  let  the  king  rule  him,  and  was  at  the 
same  time  able  to  show  a  strong  hand  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  so  that  the  king  soon  came 
to  regard  him  as  a  real  treasure.  Soon  after 

O 

North's  appointment,  Lord  Chatham  and  other 
friends  of  America  in  the  cabinet  resigned  their 
places  and  were  succeeded  by  friends  of  the  king. 
From  1768  to  1782  George  HI.  was  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  his  own  prime  minister,  and  con 
trived  to  keep  a  majority  in  Parliament.  During 
those  fourteen  years  the  American  question  was 
uppermost,  and  his  policy  was  at  all  hazards  to 
force  the  colonists  to  abandon  their  position  that 
taxation  must  go  hand  in  hand  with  representa 
tion. 

This  purpose  was  already  apparent  in  Charles 
Townshend's  acts.  They  were  not  at  all  like 
previous  acts  imposing  port  duties  to  which  the 


THE  STAMP  ACT,  AND  REVENUE  LAWS.    67 

Americans  had  submitted.  British  historians 
sometimes  speak  of  the  American  Revolution  as 
an  affair  which  grew  out  of  a  mere  dispute  about 
money ;  and  even  among  Americans,  in  ordinary 
conversation  and  sometimes  in  current  literature, 
the  unwillingness  of  our  forefathers  to  pay  a  tax 
of  threepence  a  pound  on  tea  is  mentioned  with 
out  due  reference  to  the  attendant  circumstances 
which  made  them  refuse  to  pay  such  a  tax.  We 
cannot  hope  to  understand  the  fierce  wrath  by 
which  they  were  animated  unless  we  bear  in  mind 
not  only  the  simple  fact  of  the  tax,  but  also  the 
spirit  in  which  it  was  levied  and  the  purpose  for 
which  the  revenue  was  to  be  used.  The  What  the 
Molasses  Act  threatening  the  ruin  of  S^SlSf 
New  England  commerce  was  still  on  me<mt> 
the  statute-book,  and  commissioners,  armed  with 
odious  search-warrants  for  enforcing  this  and 
other  tyrannical  laws,  were  on  their  way  to  Amer 
ica.  For  more  than  half  a  century  the  people 
had  jealously  guarded  against  the  abuse  of  power 
by  the  royal  governors  by  making  them  depend 
ent  upon  the  legislatures  for  their  salaries.  Now 
they  were  all  at  once  to  be  made  independent, 
so  that  they  might  even  dismiss  the  legislatures, 
and  if  need  be  call  for  troops  to  help  them.  The 
judges,  moreover,  with  their  power  over  men's 
lives  and  property,  were  no  longer  to  be  respon 
sible  to  the  people.  If  these  changes  were  to  be 
effected,  it  would  be  nothing  less  than  a  revolu- 


68  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

tion  by  which  the  Americans  would  be  deprived 
of  their  liberty.  And,  to  crown  all,  the  money 
by  which  this  revolution  was  to  be  brought  about 
was  to  be  contributed  in  the  shape  of  port  duties 
by  the  Americans  themselves  !  To  expect  our  fore 
fathers  to  submit  to  such  legislation  as  this  was 
about  as  sensible  as  it  would  have  been  to  expect 
them  to  obey  an  order  to  buy  halters  and  hang 
themselves. 

When  the  news  of  the  Townshend  acts  reached 
Massachusetts,  the  assembly  at  its  next  session 
took  a  decided  stand.  Besides  a  petition  to  the 
king  and  letters  to  several  leading  British  states 
men,  it  issued  a  circular  letter  addressed  to  the 
other  twelve  colonies,  asking  for  their  friendly 
advice  and  cooperation  with  reference  to  the 
Townshend  measures.  These  papers  were  writ 
ten  by  Samuel  Adams.  The  circular  letter  was 
really  an  invitation  to  the  other  colonies  to  con 
cert  measures  of  resistance  if  it  should  be  found 
necessary.  It  enraged  the  king,  and  presently 
an  order  came  across  the  ocean  to  Francis  Ber 
nard,  royal  governor  of  Massachusetts,  to  demand 
of  the  assembly  that  it  rescind  its  circular  letter, 
under  penalty  of  instant  dissolution.  Otis  ex 
claimed  that  Great  Britain  had  better  rescind  the 
Townshend  acts  if  she  did  not  wish  to  lose  her 
colonies.  The  assembly  decided,  by  a  vote  of  92 
to  17,  that  it  would  not  rescind.  This  flat  de 
fiance  was  everywhere  applauded.  The  assem- 


THE  STAMP  ACT,  AND  REVENUE  LAWS.    69 

bliea  of  the  other  colonies  were  ordered  to  take 
no  notice  of  the  Massachusetts  circular,  but  the 
order  was  generally  disobeyed,  and  in  several 
cases  the  governors  turned  the  assemblies  out  of 
doors.  The  atmosphere  of  America  now  became 
alive  with  politics  ;  more  meetings  were  held, 
more  speeches  made,  and  more  pamphlets  printed, 
than  ever  before. 

In  England  the  dignified  and  manly  course  of 
the  Americans  was  generally  greeted  with  ap 
plause  by  Whigs  of  whatever  sort,  except  those 
who  had  come  into  the  somewhat  widening  circle 
of  "  the  king's  friends."  The  Old  Whigs,  - 
Burke,  Fox,  Conway,  Savile,  Lord  John 
Cavendish,  and  the  Duke  of  Richmond ; 
and  the  New  Whigs,  —  Chatham,  Shel- 
burne,  Camden,  Dunning,  Barre",  and 
Beckford  ;  steadily  defended  the  Amer- 
icans  throughout  the  whole  of  the  Rev- 
olutionary  crisis,  and  the  weight  of  the  tamed> 
best  intelligence  in  the  country  was  certainly  on 
their  side.  Could  they  have  acted  as  a  united 
body,  could  Burke  and  Fox  have  joined  forces  in 
harmony  with  Chatham  and  Shelburne,  they 
might  have  thwarted  the  king  and  prevented  the 
rupture  with  America.  But  George  III.  profited 
by  the  hopeless  division  between  these  two  Whig 
parties  ;  and  as  the  quarrel  with  America  grew 
fiercer,  he  succeeded  in  arraying  the  national 
pride  to  some  extent  upon  his  side  and  against 


70  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

the  Whigs.  This  made  him  feel  stronger  and 
stimulated  his  zeal  against  the  Americans.  He 
felt  that  if  he  could  first  crush  Whig  principles 
in  America,  he  could  then  turn  and  crush  them 
in  England.  In  this  he  was  correct,  except  that 
he  miscalculated  the  strength  of  the  Americans. 
It  was  the  defeat  of  his  schemes  in  America  that 
ensured  their  defeat  in  England.  It  is  quite 
wrong  and  misleading,  therefore,  to  remember  the 
Revolutionary  War  as  a  struggle  between  the 
British  people  and  the  American  people.  It  was 
a  struggle  between  two  hostile  principles,  each  of 
which  was  represented  in  both  countries.  In  win 
ning  the  good  fight,  our  forefathers  won  a  victory 
for  England  as  well  as  for  America.  What  was 
crushed  was  George  III.  and  the  kind  of  despot 
ism  which  he  wished  to  fasten  upon  America  in 
order  that  he  might  fasten  it  upon  England.  If 
the  memory  of  George  III.  deserves  to  be  exe 
crated,  it  is  especially  because  he  succeeded  in 
giving  to  his  own  selfish  struggle  for  power  the 
appearance  of  a  struggle  between  the  people  of 
England  and  the  people  of  America;  and  in  so 
doing,  he  sowed  seeds  of  enmity  and  distrust  be 
tween  two  glorious  nations  that,  for  their  own 
sakes  and  for  the  welfare  of  mankind,  ought 
never  for  one  moment  to  be  allowed  to  forget 
their  brotherhood.  Time,  however,  is  rapidly  re 
pairing  the  damage  which  George  III.'s  policy 
wrought,  and  it  need  in  nowise  disturb  our  narra- 


THE  STAMP  ACT,  AND  REVENUE  LAWS.    71 

live.  In  this  brief  sketch  we  must  omit  hun 
dreds  of  interesting  details  ;  but,  if  we  would  look 
at  things  from  the  right  point  of  view,  we  must 
bear  in  mind  that  every  act  of  George  III.,  from 
1768  onward,  which  brought  on  and  carried  on 
the  Revolutionary  War,  was  done  in  spite  of  the 
earnest  protest  of  many  of  the  best  people  in 
England  ;  and  that  the  king's  wrong-headed  pol 
icy  prevailed  only  because  he  was  able,  through 
corrupt  methods,  to  command  a  parliament  which 
did  not  really  represent  the  people.  Had  the 
principles  in  support  of  which  Lord  Chatham 
joined  hands  with  Samuel  Adams  for  one  moment 
prevailed,  the  king's  schemes  would  have  collapsed 
like  a  soap-bubble. 

As  it  was,  in  1768  the  king  succeeded,  in  spite 
of  strong  opposition,  in  carrying  his  point.  He 
saw  that  the  American  colonies  were  disposed  to 
resist  the  Townshend  acts,  and  that  in  this  defiant 
attitude  Massachusetts  was  the  ringleader.  The 

O 

Massachusetts  circular  pointed  toward  united  ac 
tion  on  the  part  of  the  colonies.  Above  all  things 
it  was  desirable  to  prevent  any  such  union,  and 
accordingly  the  king  decided  to  make  his  prin 
cipal  attack  upon  Massachusetts,  while  dealing 
more  kindly  with  the  other  colonies.  Thus  he 
hoped  Massachusetts  might  be  isolated  and  hum 
bled,  and  in  this  belief  he  proceeded  faster  and 
more  rashly  than  if  he  had  supposed  himself  to 
be  dealing  with  a  united  America.  In  order  to 


72  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

catch  Samuel  Adams  and  James  Otis,  and  get 
them  sent  over  to  England  for  trial,  he  attempted 
to  revive  an  old  statute  of  Henry  VIII.  about 
treason  committed  abroad ;  and  in  order  to  en 
force  the  revenue  laws  in  spite  of  all  opposition, 
he  ordered  troops  to  be  sent  to  Boston. 

This  was  a  very  harsh  measure,  and  some  ex- 
Troopssent  cuse  was  needed  to  justify  it  before 
to  Boston.  parliament.  It  was  urged  that  Boston 
was  a  disorderly  town,  and  the  sacking  of  Hutch- 
inson's  house  could  be  cited  in  support  of  this 
view.  Then  in  June,  1768,  there  was  a  slight  con 
flict  between  townspeople  and  revenue  officers,  in 
which  no  one  was  hurt,  but  which  led  to  a  great 
town-meeting  in  the  Old  South  Meeting-House, 
and  gave  Governor  Bernard  an  opportunity  for 
saying  that  he  was  intimidated  and  hindered  in 
the  execution  of  the  laws.  The  king's  real  pur 
pose,  however,  in  sending  troops  was  not  so  much 
to  keep  the  peace  as  to  enforce  the  Townshend 
acts,  and  so  the  people  of  Boston  understood  it. 
Except  for  these  odious  and  tyrannical  laws,  there 
was  nothing  that  threatened  disturbance  in  Bos 
ton.  The  arrival  of  British  troops  at  Long 
Wharf,  in  the  autumn  of  1768,  simply  increased 
the  danger  of  disturbance,  and  in  a  certain  sense 
it  may  be  said  to  have  been  the  beginning  of  the 
Revolutionary  War.  Very  few  people  realized 
this  at  the  time,  but  Samuel  Adams  now  made  up 
his  mind  that  the  only  way  in  which  the  Ameri- 


THE  STAMP  ACT,  AND  REVENUE  LAWS.    73 

can  colonies  could  preserve  their  liberties  was  to 
unite  in  some  sort  of  federation  and  declare 
themselves  independent  of  Great  Britain.  It  was 
with  regret  that  he  had  come  to  this  conclusion, 
and  he  was  very  slow  in  proclaiming  it,  but  after 
1768  he  kept  it  distinctly  before  his  mind.  He 
saw  clearly  the  end  toward  which  public  opinion 
was  gradually  drifting,  and  because  of  his  great 
influence  over  the  Boston  town-meeting  and  the 
Massachusetts  assembly,  this  clearness  of  purpose 
made  him  for  the  next  seven  years  the  most  for 
midable  of  the  king's  antagonists  in  America. 

The  people  of  Boston  were  all  the  more  indig 
nant  at  the  arrival  of  troops  in  their  town  because 
the  king  in  his  hurry  to  send  them  had  even  disre 
garded  the  act  of  Parliament  which  provided  for 
such  cases.  According  to  that  act  the  soldiers 
ought  to  have  been  lodged  in  Castle  William  on 
one  of  the  little  islands  in  the  harbour.  Even  ac 
cording  to  British-made  law  they  had  no  business 
to  be  quartered  in  Boston  so  long  as  there  was 
room  for  them  in  the  Castle.  During  the  next 
seventeen  months  the  people  made  several  formal 
protests  against  their  presence  in  town,  and  asked 
for  their  removal.  But  these  protests  were  all 
fruitless  until  innocent  blood  had  been  shed.  The 
soldiers  generally  behaved  no  worse  than  rough 
troopers  on  such  occasions  are  apt  to  do,  and  the 
townspeople  for  the  most  part  preserved  decorum, 
but  quarrels  now  and  then  occurred,  and  after 


74  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

a  while  became  frequent.  In  September,  1769, 
James  Otis  was  brutally  assaulted  at  the  British 
Coffee  House  by  one  of  the  commissioners  of  cus 
toms  aided  and  abetted  by  two  or  three  army  offi 
cers.  His  health  was  already  feeble  and  in  this 
affray  he  was  struck  on  the  head  with  a  sword 
and  so  badly  injured  that  he  afterward  became 
insane.  After  this  the  feeling  of  the  people 
toward  the  soldiers  was  more  bitter  than  ever. 
In  February,  1770,  there  was  much  disturbance. 
Toward  the  end  of  the  month  an  informer  named 
Kichardson  fired  from  his  window  into  a  crowd 
and  killed  a  little  boy  about  eleven  years  of  age, 
named  Christopher  Snyder.  The  funeral  of  this 
poor  boy,  the  first  victim  of  the  Revolution,  was 
attended  on  Monday,  the  26th,  by  a  great  proces 
sion  of  citizens,  including  those  foremost  in  wealth 
and  influence. 

The  rest  of  that  week  was  full  of  collisions 
which  on  Friday  almost  amounted  to  a  riot  and 
led  the  governor's  council  to  consider  seriously 
whether  the  troops  ought  not  to  be  removed.  But 
The  "Boston  Before  they  had  settled  the  question  the 
Massacre."  crisis  came  on  Monday  evening,  March 
5,  in  an  affray  before  the  Custom  House  011 
King  street,  when  seven  of  Captain  Preston's 
company  fired  into  the  crowd,  killing  five  men 
and  wounding  several  others.  Two  of  the  victims 
were  innocent  bystanders.  Two  were  sailors  from 
ships  lying  in  the  harbour,  and  they,  together  with 


THE  STAMP  ACT,  AND  REVENUE  LAWS.     75 

the  remaining  victim,  a  ropemaker,  had  been  ac 
tively  engaged  in  the  affray.  One  of  the  sailors, 
a  mulatto  or  half-breed  Indian  of  gigantic  stat 
ure,  named  Crispus  Attucks,  had  been  especially 
conspicuous.  The  slaughter  of  these  five  men  se 
cured  in  a  moment  what  so  many  months  of  deco 
rous  protest  had  failed  to  accomplish.  Much  more 
serious  bloodshed  was  imminent  when  Lieutenant- 
governor  Hutchinsoii  arrived  upon  the  scene  and 
promptly  arrested  the  offending  soldiers.  The 
next  day  there  was  an  immense  meeting  at  the 
Old  South,  and  Samuel  Adams,  at  the  head  of  a 
committee,  came  into  the  council  chamber  at  the 
Town  House,  and  in  the  name  of  three  thousand 
freemen  sternly  commanded  Hutchinson  to  remove 
the  soldiers  from  the  town.  Before  sunset  they 
had  all  been  withdrawn  to  the  Castle.  When  the 
news  reached  the  ears  of  Parliament  there  was 
some  talk  of  reinstating  them  in  the  town,  but 
Colonel  Barre  cut  short  the  discussion  with  the 
pithy  question,  "  if  the  officers  agreed  in  remov 
ing  the  soldiers  to  Castle  William,  what  minister 
will  dare  to  send  them  back  to  Boston  ?  " 

Thus  the  so-called  "  Boston  Massacre  "  wrought 
for  the  king  a  rebuff  which  he  felt  perhaps  even 
more  keenly  than  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act. 
Not  only  had  his  troops  been  peremptorily  turned 
out  of  Boston,  but  his  policy  had  for  the  moment 
weakened  in  its  hold  upon  Parliament.  In  the 
summer  of  17G9  the  assembly  of  Virginia  adopted 


76  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

a  very  important  series  of  resolutions  condemning 
the  policy  of  Great  Britain  and  recommending 
united  action  on  the  part  of  the  colonies  in  de 
fence  of  their  liberties.  The  governor  then  dis 
solved  the  assembly,  whereupon  its  members  met 
in  convention  at  the  Raleigh  tavern  and  adopted 
a  set  of  resolves  prepared  by  Washington,  strictly 
forbidding  importations  from  England  until  the 
Townshend  acts  should  be  repealed.  These  re 
solves  were  generally  adopted  by  the  colonies,  and 
presently  the  merchants  of  London,  finding  their 
trade  falling  off,  petitioned  Parliament  to  recon- 
Lord  North,  sider  its  policy.  In  January,  1770,  Lord 
minister,  re-  North  became  prime  minister.  In  April 
duties  ex-  all  the  duties  were  taken  off,  except  the 
mo.00  duty  on  tea,  which  the  king  insisted 
upon  retaining,  in  order  to  avoid  surrendering  the 
principle  at  issue.  The  effect  of  even  this  partial 
concession  was  to  weaken  the  spirit  of  opposition 
in  America,  and  to  create  a  division  among  the 
colonies.  In  July  the  merchants  of  New  York 
refused  to  adhere  any  longer  to  the  non-impor 
tation  agreement  except  with  regard  to  tea,  and 
they  began  sending  orders  to  England  for  va 
rious  sorts  of  merchandise.  Rhode  Island  and 
New  Hampshire  also  broke  the  agreement.  This 
aroused  general  indignation,  and  ships  from  the 
three  delinquent  colonies  were  driven  from  such 
ports  as  Boston  and  Charleston. 

Union  among  the  colonies  was  indeed  only  skin 


THE  STAMP  ACT,   AND  REVENUE  LAWS.    11 

deep.  The  only  thing  which  kept  it  alive  was 
British  aggression.  Almost  every  colony  Want  o{ 
had  some  bone  of  contention  with  its  umoilt 
neighbours.  At  this  moment  New  York  and  New 
Hampshire  were  wrangling  over  the  possession  of 
the  Green  Mountains,  and  guerrilla  warfare  was 
going  on  between  Connecticut  and  Pennsylvania 
in  the  valley  of  Wyoming.  It  was  hard  to  secure 
concerted  action  about  anything.  For  two  years 
after  the  withdrawal  of  troops  from  Boston  there 
was  a  good  deal  of  disturbance  in  different  parts 
of  the  country ;  quarrels  between  governors  and 
their  assemblies  were  kept  up  with  increasing  bit 
terness  ;  in  North  Carolina  there  was  an  insurrec 
tion  against  the  governor  which  was  suppressed 
only  after  a  bloody  battle  near  the  Cape  Fear 
river;  in  Rhode  Island  the  revenue  schooner 
Gaspee  was  seized  and  burned,  and  when  an  order 
came  from  the  ministry  requiring  the  offenders  to 
be  sent  to  England  for  trial,  the  chief -justice  of 
Rhode  Island,  Stephen  Hopkins,  refused  to  obey 
the  order.  But  amid  all  these  disturbances  there 
appeared  nothing  like  concerted  action  on  the 
part  of  the  colonies.  In  June,  1772,  Hutchinson 
said  that  the  union  of  the  colonies  seemed  to  be 
broken,  and  he  hoped  it  would  not  be  renewed, 
for  he  believed  it  meant  separation  from  the 
mother-country,  and  that  he  regarded  as  the  worst 
of  calamities. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE   CRISIS. 

THE  surest  way  to  renew  and  cement  the  union 
was  to  show  that  the  ministry  had  not  relaxed  in 
its  determination  to  enforce  the  principle  of  the 
Towiishend  acts.  This  was  made  clear  in  August, 
Salaries  of  1772,  when  it  was  ordered  that  in  Mas- 
he  judges,  sachusetts  the  judges  should  henceforth 
be  paid  by  the  crown.  Popular  excitement  rose  to 
fever  heat,  and  the  judges  were  threatened  with 
impeachment  should  they  dare  accept  a  penny 
from  the  royal  treasury.  The  turmoil  was  in 
creased  next  year  by  the  discovery  in  London  of 
the  package  of  letters  which  were  made  to  support 
the  unjust  charge  against  Hutchinson  and  some 
of  his  friends  that  they  had  instigated  and  aided 
the  most  extreme  measures  of  the  ministry. 

In  the  autumn  of  1772  Hutchinson  refused  to 
call  an  extra  session  of  the  assembly  to  consider 
what  should  be  done  about  the  judges.  Samuel 
Adams  then  devised  a  scheme  by  which  the  towns 
of  Massachusetts  could  consult  with  each  other 
and  agree  upon  some  common  course  of  action  in 
case  of  emergencies.  For  this  purpose  each  town 
was  to  appoint  a  standing  committee,  and  as  a 


THE   CRISIS.  79 

great  part  of  their  work  was  necessarily  done  by 
letter  they  were  called  "  committees  of 

Committees 

correspondence.        I  his  was   the    step   of  corre- 

1  ,  .      •       spondence. 

that  fairly  organized  the  Revolution. 
It  was  by  far  the  most  important  of  all  the  steps 
that  preceded  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
The  committees  did  their  work  with  great  effi 
ciency  and  the  governor  had  no  means  of  stopping 
it.  They  were  like  an  invisible  legislature  that 
was  always  in  session  and  could  never  be  dis 
solved  ;  and  when  the  old  government  fell  they 
were  able  to  administer  affairs  until  a  new  govern 
ment  could  be  set  up.  In  the  spring  of  1773 
Virginia  carried  this  work  of  organization  a  long 
step  further,  when  Dabney  Carr  suggested  and 
carried  a  motion  calling  for  committees  of  cor 
respondence  between  the  several  colonies.  From 
this  point  it  was  a  comparatively  short  step  to  a 
permanent  Continental  Congress. 

It  happened  that  these  preparations  were  made 
just  in  time  to  meet  the  final  act  of  aggression 
which  brought  on  the  Revolutionary  War.  The 
Americans  had  thus  far  successfully  resisted  the 
Townshend  acts  and  secured  the  repeal  of  all  the 
duties  except  on  tea.  As  for  tea  they  had  plenty, 
but  not  from  England ;  they  smuggled  it  from 
Holland  in  spite  of  custom-houses  and  search- 
warrants.  Clearly  unless  the  Americans  could 
be  made  to  buy  tea  from  England  and  pay  the 
duty  on  it,  the  king  must  own  himself  defeated. 


80  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

Since  it  appeared  that  they  could  not  be  forced 
into  doing  this,  it  remained  to  be  seen  if  they 
could  be  tricked  into  doing  it.  A  truly  ingenious 
scheme  was  devised.  Tea  sent  by  the  East  India 
Tea  ships  sent  Company  to  America  had  formerly  paid 
as  a  chat  a  duty  in  some  British  port  on  the  way. 
This  duty  was  now  taken  off,  so  that 
the  price  of  the  tea  for  America  might  be  low 
ered.  The  company's  tea  thus  became  so  cheap 
that  the  American  merchant  could  buy  a  pound 
of  it  and  pay  the  threepence  duty  beside  for  less 
than  it  cost  him  to  smuggle  a  pound  of  tea  from 
Holland.  It  was  supposed  that  the  Americans 
would  of  course  buy  the  tea  which  they  could  get 
most  cheaply,  and  would  thus  be  beguiled  into 
submission  to  that  principle  of  taxation  which 
they  had  hitherto  resisted.  Ships  laden  with  tea 
were  accordingly  sent  in  the  autumn  of  1773  to 
Boston,  New  York,  Philadelphia,  and  Charleston  ; 
and  consignees  were  appointed  to  receive  the  tea 
in  each  of  these  towns. 

Under  the  guise  of  a  commercial  operation,  this 
was  purely  a  political  trick.  It  was  an  insulting 
challenge  to  the  American  people,  and  merited 
the  reception  which  they  gave  it.  They  would 
have  shown  themselves  unworthy  of  their  rich 
political  heritage  had  they  given  it  any  other.  In 
New  York,  Philadelphia,  and  Charleston  mass- 
meetings  of  the  people  voted  that  the  consignees 
should  be  ordered  to  resign  their  offices,  and  they 


THE   CRISIS.  81 

did  so.  At  Philadelphia  the  tea-ship  was  met 
and  sent  back  to  England  before  it  had  come 
within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  custom-house.  At 
Charleston  the  tea  was  landed,  and  as  there  was 
no  one  to  receive  it  or  pay  the  duty,  it  was  thrown 
into  a  damp  cellar  and  left  there  to  spoil. 

In  Boston  things  took  a  different  turn.  The 
stubborn  courage  of  Governor  Hutchinson  pre 
vented  the  consignees,  two  of  whom  were  his  own 
sons,  from  resigning ;  the  ships  arrived  and  were 
anchored  under  guard  of  a  committee  of  citizens  ; 
if  they  were  not  unloaded  within  twenty  days,  the 
custom-house  officers  were  empowered  by  law  to 
seize  them  and  unload  them  by  force  ;  and  having 
once  come  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  custom 
house,  they  could  not  go  out  to  sea  with-  Howthechal. 
out  a  clearance  from  the  collector  or  a 
pass  from  the  governor.  The  situation  pa 
was  a  difficult  one,  but  it  was  most  nobly  1G' 1773> 
met  by  the  men  of  Massachusetts.  The  excite 
ment  was  intense,  but  the  proceedings  were  char 
acterized  from  first  to  last  by  perfect  quiet  and 
decorum.  In  an  earnest  and  solemn,  almost 
prayerful  spirit,  the  advice  of  all  the  towns  in  the 
commonwealth  was  sought,  and  the  response  was 
unanimous  that  the  tea  must  on  no  account  what 
ever  be  landed.  Similar  expressions  of  opinion 
came  from  other  colonies,  and  the  action  of  Mas 
sachusetts  was  awaited  with  breathless  interest. 
Many  town-meetings  were  held  in  Boston,  and  the 


82  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

owner  of  the  ships  was  ordered  to  take  them  away 
without  unloading  ;  but  the  collector  contrived  to 
fritter  away  the  time  until  the  nineteenth  day, 
and  then  refused  a  clearance.  On  the  next  day, 
the  16th  of  December,  1773,  seven  thousand  peo 
ple  were  assembled  in  town-meeting  in  and  around 
the  Old  South  Meeting-House,  while  the  owner 
of  the  ships  was  sent  out  to  the  governor's  house 
at  Milton  to  ask  for  a  pass.  It  was  nightfall  when 
he  returned  without  it,  and  there  was  then  but  one 
thing  to  be  done.  By  sunrise  next  morning  the 
revenue  officers  would  board  the  ships  and  unload 
their  cargoes,  the  consignees  would  go  to  the  cus 
tom-house  and  pay  the  duty,  and  the  king's  scheme 
would  have  been  crowned  with  success.  The  only 
way  to  prevent  this  was  to  rip  open  the  tea-chests 
and  spill  their  contents  into  the  sea,  and  this  was 
done,  according  to  a  preconcerted  plan  and  with 
out  the  slightest  uproar  or  disorder,  by  a  small 
party  of  men  disguised  as  Indians.  Among  them 
were  some  of  the  best  of  the  townsfolk,  and  the 
chief  manager  of  the  proceedings  was  Samuel 
Adams.  The  destruction  of  the  tea  has  often 
been  spoken  of,  especially  by  British  historians, 
as  a  "  riot,"  but  nothing  could  have  been  less  like 
a  riot.  It  was  really  the  deliberate  action  of  the 
commonwealth  of  Massachusetts,  and  the  only  fit 
ting  reply  to  the  king's  insulting  trick.  It  was 
hailed  with  delight  throughout  the  thirteen  colo 
nies,  and  there  is  nothing  in  our  whole  history  of 


THE   CRISIS.  83 

which  an   educated  American   should    feel  more 
proud. 

The  effect  upon  the  king  and  his  friends  was 
maddening,  and  events  were  quickly  brought  to  a 
crisis.  In  spite  of  earnest  opposition  retaliatory 
acts  were  passed  through  Parliament  in 

The  Retaha- 

April,  1774.    One  of  these  was  the  Port  tory  Acts, 

April,  1774. 

Bill,  for  shutting  up  the  port  of  Boston 
and  stopping  its  trade  until  the  people  should  be 
starved  and  frightened  into  paying  for  the  tea 
that  had  been  thrown  overboard.  Another  was 
the  Regulating  Act,  by  which  the  charter  of  Mas 
sachusetts  was  annulled,  its  free  government  swept 
away,  and  a  military  governor  appointed  with  des 
potic  power  like  Andros.  These  acts  were  to  go 
into  operation  on  the  1st  of  June,  and  on  that 
day  Governor  Hutchinson  sailed  for  England,  in 
the  vain  hope  of  persuading  the  king  to  adopt  a 
milder  policy.  It  was  not  long  before  his  prop 
erty  was  confiscated,  like  that  of  other  Tories,  and 
after  six  years  of  exile  he  died  in  London.  The 
new  governor,  Thomas  Gage,  who  had  long  been 
commander  of  the  military  forces  in  America,  was 
a  mild  and  pleasant  man  without  much  strength 
of  character.  His  presence  was  endured  but  his 
authority  was  not  recognized  in  Massachusetts. 
Troops  were  now  quartered  again  in  Boston,  but 
they  could  not  prevent  the  people  from  treating 
the  Regulating  Act  with  open  contempt.  Courts 
organized  under  that  act  were  prevented  from  sit- 


84  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

ting,  and  councillors  were  compelled  to  resign  their 
places.  The  king's  authority  was  everywhere 
quietly  but  doggedly  defied.  At  the  same  time 
the  stoppage  of  business  in  Boston  was  the  cause 
of  much  distress  which  all  the  colonies  sought  to 
relieve  by  voluntary  contributions  of  food  and 
other  needed  articles. 

The  events  of  the  last  twelve  months  had  gone 
further  than  anything  before  toward  awakening  a 
sentiment  of  union  among  the  people  of  the  colo 
nies.  It  was  still  a  feeble  sentiment,  but  it  was 
strong  enough  to  make  them  all  feel  that  Boston 
was  suffering  in  the  common  cause.  The  system  of 
Continental  corresponding  committees  now  ripened 
£°eefsr,esept.  into  tne  Continental  Congress,  which 
held  its  first  meeting  at  Philadelphia  in 
September,  1774.  Among  the  delegates  were  Sam 
uel  and  John  Adams,  Robert  Livingston,  John 
Rutledge,  John  Dickinson,  Samuel  Chase,  Edmund 
Pendleton,  Richard  Henry  Lee,  Patrick  Henry, 
and  George  Washington.  Their  action  was  cau 
tious  and  conservative.  They  confined  themselves 
for  the  present  to  trying  the  effect  of  a  candid  state 
ment  of  grievances,  and  drew  up  a  Declaration  of 
Rights  and  other  papers,  which  were  pronounced 
by  Lord  Chatham  unsurpassed  for  ability  in  any 
age  or  country.  In  Parliament,  however,  the 
king's  friends  were  becoming  all-powerful,  and  the 
only  effect  produced  by  these  papers  was  to  goad 
them  toward  further  attempts  at  coercion.  Mas- 


THE   CRISIS.  85 

saehusetts  was  declared  to  be  in  a   state  of  rebel 
lion,  as  in  truth  she  was. 

While  Samuel  Adams  was  at  Philadelphia,  the 
lead  in  Boston  was  taken  by  his  friend  Dr.  War 
ren.  In  a  county  convention  held  at  Milton  in 
September,  Dr.  W^arren  drew  up  a  series  of  re 
solves  which  fairly  set  on  foot  the  Revolution. 
They  declared  that  the  Regulating  Act  was  null 
and  void,  and  that  a  king  who  violates  the  char 
tered  rights  of  his  subjects  forfeits  their  allegiance ; 
they  directed  the  collectors  of  taxes  to  refuse  to 
pay  the  money  collected  to  Gage's  treasurer  ;  and 
they  threatened  retaliation  in  case  Gage  should 
venture  to  arrest  any  one  for  political 

J  The  Suffolk 

reasons.      These    bold     resolves    were   Resolves, 

Sept.  1774. 

adopted  by  the  convention  and  sanc 
tioned  by  the  Continental  Congress.  Next  month 
the  people  of  Massachusetts  formed  a  provisional 
government,  and  began  organizing  a  militia  and 
collecting  military  stores  at  Concord  and  other 
inland  towns. 

General  Gage's  position  at  this  time  was  a  try 
ing  one  for  a  man  of  his  temperament.  In  an 
unguarded  moment  he  had  assured  the  king  that 
four  regiments  ought  to  be  enough  to  bring  Mas 
sachusetts  into  an  attitude  of  penitence.  Now 
Massachusetts  was  in  an  attitude  of  rebellion, 
and  he  realized  that  he  had  not  troops  enough  to 
command  the  situation.  People  in  England  were 
blaming  him  for  not  doing  something,  and  late  in 


86  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

the  winter  he  received  a  positive  order  to  arrest 
Samuel  Adams  and  his  friend  John  Hancock,  then 
at  the  head  of  the  new  provisional  government  of 
Massachusetts,  and  send  them  to  England  to  be 
tried  for  high  treason.  On  the  18th  of  April, 
1775,  these  gentlemen  were  staying  at  a  friend's 
house  in  Lexington  ;  and  Gage  that  evening  sent 
out  a  force  of  800  men  to  seize  the  military  stores 
accumulated  at  Concord,  with  instructions  to  stop 
on  the  way  at  Lexington  and  arrest  Adams  and 
Hancock.  But  Dr.  Warren  divined  the  purpose 
of  the  movement,  and  his  messenger,  Paul  Re 
vere,  succeeded  in  forewarning  the  people,  so 
that  by  the  time  the  troops  arrived  at  Lexington 
the  birds  were  flown.  The  soldiers  fired  into  a 
company  of  militia  on  Lexington  common  and 
slew  eight  or  ten  of  their  number ;  but  by  the 
time  they  reached  Concord  the  country  was  fairly 
Battle  of  aroused  and  armed  yeomanry  were  com- 
A^rii^io"'  i^  uPon  tne  scene  by  hundreds.  In  a 
sharp  skirmish  the  British  were  defeated 
and,  without  having  accomplished  any  of  the  ob 
jects  of  their  expedition,  began  their  retreat 
toward  Boston,  hotly  pursued  by  the  farmers  who 
fired  from  behind  walls  and  trees  after  the  Indian 
fashion.  A  reinforcement  of  1200  men  at  Lex 
ington  saved  the  routed  troops  from  destruction, 
but  the  numbers  of  their  assailants  grew  so  rap 
idly  that  even  this  larger  force  barely  succeeded 
in  escaping  capture.  At  sunset  the  British  reached 


THE   CRISIS.  87 

Charlestown  after  a  march  which  was  a  series  of 
skirmishes,  leaving  nearly  300  of  their  number 
killed  or  wounded  along  the  road.  By  that  time 
yeomanry  from  twenty-three  townships  had  joined 
in  the  pursuit.  The  alarm  spread  like  wildfire 
through  New  England,  and  fresh  bands  of  militia 
arrived  every  hour.  Within  three  days  Israel 
Putnam  and  Benedict  Arnold  had  come  from 
Connecticut  and  John  Stark  from  New  Hamp 
shire,  a  cordon  of  16,000  men  was  drawn  around 
Boston,  and  the  siege  of  that  town  was  begun. 

The  belligerent  feeling  in  New  England  had 
now  grown  so  strong  as  to  show  itself  in  an  act 
of  offensive  warfare.  On  the  10th  of  May,  just 
three  weeks  after  Lexington,  the  fort- 

i    rn-  T  i    /->(  -r»    •     i 

resses  at  lieonderoga  and  Crown  Foint, 


Capture  of 


11.*  •  May  10,  1775. 

controlling  the  line  ot  communication 
between  New  York  and  Canada,  were  surprised 
and  captured  by  men  from  the  Green  Mountains 
and  Connecticut  valley  under  Ethan  Allen  and 
Seth  Warner.  The  Congress,  which  met  on  that 
same  day  at  Philadelphia,  showed  some  reluctance 
in  sanctioning  an  act  so  purely  offensive  ;  but  in 
its  choice  of  a  president  the  spirit  of  defiance 
toward  Great  Britain  was  plainly  shown.  John 
Hancock,  whom  the  British  Commander-in-chief 
was  under  stringent  orders  to  arrest  and  send  over 
to  England  to  be  tried  for  treason,  was  chosen 
to  that  eminent  position  on  the  24th  of  May. 
This  showed  that  the  preponderance  of  sentiment 


88  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

in  the  country  was  in  favour  of  supporting  the 
New  England  colonies  in  the  armed  struggle  into 
which  they  had  drifted.  This  was  still  further 
shown  two  days  later,  when  Congress  in  the  name 
of  the  "  United  Colonies  of  America  "  assumed 
the  direction  of  the  rustic  army  of  New  England 
men  engaged  in  the  siege  of  Boston.  As  Con 
gress  was  absolutely  penniless  and  had  no  power 
to  lay  taxes,  it  proceeded  to  borrow  £6000  for  the 
purchase  of  gunpowder.  It  called  for  ten  com 
panies  of  riflemen  from  Virginia,  Maryland,  and 
Pennsylvania,  to  reinforce  what  was  henceforth 
known  as  the  Continental  army  ;  and  on  the  15th 
Washington  of  June  'li  appointed  George  Washing- 
*on  commander-in-cliief.  The  choice  of 
Washington  was  partly  due  to  the  gen 
eral  confidence  in  his  ability  and  in  his 
lofty  character.  In  the  French  War  he  had  won 
a  military  reputation  higher  than  that  of  any 
other  American,  and  he  was  already  commander- 
in-chief  of  the  forces  of  Virginia.  But  the  choice 
was  also  partly  due  to  sound  political  reasons. 
The  Massachusetts  leaders,  especially  Samuel 
Adams  and  his  cousin  John,  were  distrusted  by 
some  people  as  extremists  and  fire-eaters.  They 
wished  to  bring  about  a  declaration  of  independ 
ence,  for  they  believed  it  to  be  the  only  possible 
cure  for  the  evils  of  the  time.  The  leaders  in 
other  colonies,  upon  which  the  hand  of  the  Brit 
ish  government  had  not  borne  so  heavily,  had  not 


THE   CRISIS.  89 

yet  advanced  quite  so  far  as  this.  Most  of  them 
believed  that  the  king  could  be  brought  to  terms ; 
they  did  not  realize  that  he  would  never  give  way 
because  it  was  politically  as  much  a  life  and  death 
struggle  for  him  as  for  them.  Washington  was 

OO  " 

not  yet  clearly  in  favour  of  independence,  nor  was 
Jefferson,  who  a  twelvemonth  hence  was  to  be  en 
gaged  in  writing  the  Declaration.  It  is  doubtful 
if  any  of  the  leading  men  as  yet  agreed  with  the 
Adamses,  except  Dr.  Franklin,  who  had  just  re 
turned  from  England  after  his  ten  years'  stay 
there,  and  knew  very  well  how  little  hope  was  to 
be  placed  in  conciliatory  measures.  The  Adamses, 
therefore,  like  wise  statesmen,  were  always  on 
their  guard  lest  circumstances  should  drive  Mas 
sachusetts  in  the  path  of  rebellion  faster  than  the 
sister  colonies  were  likely  to  keep  pace  with  her. 
This  was  what  the  king  above  all  things  wished, 
and  by  the  same  token  it  was  what  they  especially 
dreaded  and  sought  to  avoid.  To  appoint  George 
Washington  to  the  chief  command  was  to  go  a 
long  way  toward  irrevocably  committing  Virginia 
to  the  same  cause  with  Massachusetts,  and  John 
Adams  was  foremost  in  urging  the  appointment. 
Its  excellence  was  obvious  to  every  one,  and  we 
hear  of  only  two  persons  that  were  dissatisfied. 
One  of  these  was  John  Hancock,  who  coveted 
military  distinction  and  was  vain  enough  to  think 
himself  fit  for  almost  any  position.  The  other 
was  Charles  Lee,  a  British  officer  who  had  served 


90  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

in  America  in  the  French  War  and  afterward 
wandered  about  Europe  as  a  soldier  of 
fortune.  He  had  returned  to  America 
in  1773  in  the  hope  of  playing  a  leading  part 
here.  He  set  himself  up  as  an  authority  on  mil 
itary  questions,  and  pretended  to  be  a  zealous 
lover  of  liberty.  He  was  really  an  unprincipled 
charlatan  for  whom  the  kindest  thing  that  can  be 
said  is  that  perhaps  he  was  slightly  insane.  He 
had  hoped  to  be  appointed  to  the  chief  command, 
and  was  disgusted  when  he  found  himself  placed 
second  among  the  four  major-generals.  The  first 
major-general  was  Artemas  Ward  of  Massachu 
setts  ;  the  third  was  Philip  Schuyler  of  New 
York  ;  the  fourth  was  Israel  Putnam  of  Connec 
ticut.  Eight  brigadier-generals  were  appointed, 
among  whom  we  may  here  mention  Richard  Mont 
gomery  of  New  York,  William  Heath  of  Massa 
chusetts,  John  Sullivan  of  New  Hampshire,  and 
Nathanael  Greene  of  Rhode  Island.  The  adju 
tant-general,  Horatio  Gates,  was  an  Englishman 
who  had  served  in  the  French  War,  and  since  then 
had  lived  in  Virginia. 

While  Congress  was  appointing  officers  and 
making  regulations  for  the  Continental  army,  re 
inforcements  for  the  British  had  landed  in  Boston, 
making  their  army  10,000  strong.  The  new 
troops  were  commanded  by  General  William 
Howe,  a  Whig  who  disapproved  of  the  king's 
policy.  With  him  came  Sir  Henry  Clinton  and 


THE   CRISIS.  91 

John  Burgoyne,  who  were  more  in  sympathy  with 
the  king.  Howe  and  Burgoyne  were  members  of 
Parliament.  On  the  arrival  of  these  reinforce 
ments  Gage  prepared  to  occupy  the  heights  in 
Charlestown  known  as  Breed's  and  Bunker's  hills. 
These  heights  commanded  Boston,  so  that  hostile 
batteries  placed  there  would  make  it  necessary  for 
the  British  to  evacuate  the  town.  On  the  night 
of  June  16,  the  Americans  anticipated  Gage  in 
seizing  the  heights,  and  began  erecting  fortifica 
tions  on  Breed's  Hill.  It  was  an  exposed  position 
for  the  American  force,  which  might  easily  have 
been  cut  off  and  captured  if  the  British  had  gone 
around  by  sea  and  occupied  Charlestown  Neck  in 
the  rear.  The  British  preferred  to  storm  the 
American  works.  In  two  desperate  as-  Battleof 
saults,  on  the  afternoon  of  the  17th,  .^"ek^Hi11' 
they  were  repulsed  with  the  loss  of  one-  ln0' 
third  of  their  number ;  and  the  third  assault  suc 
ceeded  only  because  the  Americans  were  not  sup 
plied  with  powder.  By  driving  the  Americans 
back  to  Winter  Hill,  the  British  won  an  impor 
tant  victory  and  kept  their  hold  upon  Boston. 
The  moral  effect  of  the  battle,  however,  was  in 
favour  of  the  Americans,  for  it  clearly  indicated 
that  under  proper  circumstances  they  might  ex 
hibit  a  power  of  resistance  which  the  British 
would  find  it  impossible  to  overcome.  It  was  with 
George  III.  as  with  Pyrrhus  :  he  could  not  afford 
to  win  many  victories  at  such  cost,  for  his  supply 


92  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

of  soldiers  for  America  was  limited,  and  his  only 
hope  of  success  lay  in  inflicting  heavy  blows.  In 
winning  Bunker  Hill  his  troops  were  only  holding 
their  own ;  the  siege  of  Boston  was  not  raised  for 
a  moment. 

The  practical  effect  upon  the  British  army  was 
to  keep  it  quiet  for  several  months.  General 
Howe,  who  presently  superseded  Gage,  was  a 
brave  and  well-trained  soldier,  but  slothful  in 
temperament.  His  way  was  to  strike  a  blow,  and 
then  wait  to  see  what  would  come  of  it,  hoping  no 
doubt  that  political  affairs  might  soon  take  such 
a  turn  as  to  make  it  unnecessary  to  go  on  with 
this  fratricidal  war.  This  was  fortunate  for  the 
Americans,  for  when  Washington  took  command 
of  the  army  at  Cambridge  on  the  3d  of  July,  he 
saw  that  little  or  nothing  could  be  done  with  that 
army  until  it  should  be  far  better  organized,  dis 
ciplined,  and  equipped,  and  in  such  work  he  found 
enough  to  occupy  him  for  several  months. 

Meanwhile  Congress,  at  the  instance  of  John 
Dickinson  of  Pennsylvania  and  John  Jay  of  New 
York,  decided  to  try  the  effect  of  one  more  candid 
statement  of  affairs,  in  the  form  of  a  petition  to 
Last  petition  the  king.  This  paper  reached  London 
andhitsking;  on  tlie  !4th  of  August,  but  the  king 
answer.  refused  to  receive  it,  although  it  was 
signed  by  the  delegates  as  separate  individuals 
and  not  as  members  of  an  unauthorized  or  revolu 
tionary  body.  His  only  answer  was  a  proclaim- 


INVASIONo^CANADA 

4.   by     4. 

MDntgomery/Arnold. 


Bost< 


THE   CRISIS.  93 

tion  dated  August  23,  in  which  he  called  for 
volunteers  to  aid  in  putting  down  the  rebellion  in 
America.  At  the  same  time  he  opened  negotia 
tions  with  the  landgrave  of  Hesse-Cassel,  the  duke 
of  Brunswick,  and  other  petty  German  princes, 
and  succeeded  in  hiring  20,000  troops  to  be  sent 
to  fight  against  his  American  subjects.  When 
the  news  of  this  reached  America  it  produced  a 
profound  effect.  Perhaps  nothing  done  in  that 
year  went  so  far  toward  destroying  the  lingering 
sentiment  of  loyalty. 

In  the  spring  Congress  had  hesitated  about  en 
couraging  offensive  operations.  In  the  course  of 
the  summer  it  was  ascertained  that  the  governor 
of  Canada,  Sir  Guy  Carleton,  was  planning  an 
invasion  of  northern  New  York  and  hoping  to 
obtain  the  cooperation  of  the  Six  Nations  and  the 
Tories  of  the  Mohawk  valley.  Congress  accord 
ingly  decided  to  forestall  him  by  invad- 

f^  i  rr<  v  r  •  Americans 

ing    Canada.      Two   lines   of    invasion  invade  can- 
were  adopted.     Montgomery  descended   ms-june, 
Lake  Champlain  with   2000  men,  and 
after  a  campaign  of  two  months  captured  Mon 
treal  on  the   12th  of  November.     At  the  same 
time  Benedict  Arnold  and  Daniel  Morgan  set  out 
from  Cambridge  with  1200  men,  and  made  their 
way  through  the  wilderness  of  Maine,  up  the  val 
ley  of  the  Kennebec  and  down  that  of  the  Chau- 
diere,  coming  out  upon  the  St.  Lawrence  opposite 
Quebec  on  the   13th   of  November.     This   long 


94  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

march  through  the  primeval  forest  and  over 
rugged  and  trackless  mountains  was  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  exploits  of  the  war.  It  cost  the 
lives  of  200  men,  but  besides  this  the  rear-guard 
gave  out  and  went  back  to  Cambridge,  so  that 
when  Arnold  reached  Quebec  he  had  only  700 
men,  too  few  for  an  attack  upon  the  town.  After 
Montgomery  joined  him,  it  was  decided  to  carry 
the  works  by  storm,  but  in  the  unsuccessful  as 
sault  on  December  31,  Montgomery  was  killed, 
Arnold  disabled,  and  Morgan  taken  prisoner. 
During  the  winter  Carleton  was  reinforced  until 
he  was  able  to  recapture  Montreal.  The  Amer 
icans  were  gradually  driven  back,  and  by  June, 
1776,  had  retreated  to  Crown  Point.  Carleton 
then  resumed  his  preparations  for  invading  New 
York. 

While  the  northern  campaign  was  progressing 
thus  unfavourably,  the  British  were  at  length 
driven  from  Boston.  Howe  had  unaccountably 
neglected  to  occupy  Dorchester  heights,  which 
Washington  commanded  the  town  ;  and  Washington, 
ton^MaSi  after  waiting  till  a  sufficient  number  of 
heavy  guns  could  be  collected,  advanced 
on  the  night  of  March  4  and  occupied  them  with 
2000  men.  His  position  was  secure.  The  British 
had  no  alternative  but  to  carry  it  by  storm  or 
retire  from  Boston.  Not  caring  to  repeat  the  ex 
periment  of  Bunker  Hill,  they  embarked  on  the 
17th  of  March  and  sailed  to  Halifax,  where  they 


THE   CRISIS.  95 

busied  themselves  in  preparations  for  an  expedi 
tion  against  New  York.  Late  in  April  Washing 
ton  transferred  his  headquarters  to  New  York, 
where  he  was  able  to  muster  about  8000  men  for 
its  defence.  Thus  the  line  of  the  Hudson  river 
was  now  threatened  with  attack  at  both  its  upper 
and  lower  ends. 

This  change  in  the  seat  of  war  marks  the 
change  that  had  come  over  the  political  situation. 
It  was  no  longer  merely  a  rebellious  Massachu 
setts  that  must  be  subdued  ;  it  was  a  continental 
Union  that  must  be  broken  up.  During  the  win 
ter  and  spring  the  sentiment  in  favour  of  a  dec 
laration  of  independence  had  rapidly  grown  in 
strength.  In  November,  1775,  Lord 

,         '       .     .          LordDun- 

Dunmore,  royal  governor  of  Virginia,  moreinvir- 
sought  to  intimidate  the  revolutionary 
party  by  a  proclamation  offering  freedom  to  such 
slaves  as  would  enlist  under  the  king's  banner. 
This  aroused  the  country  against  Dunmore,  and 
in  December  he  was  driven  from  Norfolk  and 
took  refuge  in  a  ship  of  war.  On  New  Year's 
Day  he  bombarded  the  town  and  laid  it  in  ashes 
from  one  end  to  the  other.  This  violence  rapidly 
made  converts  to  the  revolutionary  party,  and 
further  lessons  were  learned  from  the  experience 
of  their  neighbours  in  North  Carolina. 

That  colony  was  the  scene  of  fierce  contests 
between  Whigs  and  Tories.  As  early  as  May  31, 
1775,  the  patriots  of  Mecklenburg  county  had 


96  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

adopted  resolutions  pointing  toward  independence 
and  forwarded  them  to  their  delegates  in  Con 
gress,  who  deemed  it  impolitic,  however,  to  lay 
them  before  that  body.  Josiah  Martin,  royal 
governor  of  North  Carolina,  was  obliged  to  flee 
on  board  ship  in  July.  He  busied  himself  with 
plans  for  the  complete  subjugation  of  the  south 
ern  colonies,  and  corresponded  with  the  govern 
ment  in  London,  as  well  as  with  his  Tory  friends 
ashore.  In  pursuance  of  these  plans  Sir  Henry 
Clinton,  with  2000  men,  was  detached  in  January, 
1776,  from  the  army  in  Boston,  and  sent 

North  Caro 
lina  and  vir-  to  the  .N  orth  Carolina  coast ;  a  fleet  under 

Sir  Peter  Parker  was  sent  from  Ireland 
to  meet  him ;  and  a  force  of  1600  Tories  was 
gathered  to  assist  him  as  soon  as  he  should  arrive. 
But  the  scheme  utterly  failed.  The  fleet  was 
buffeted  by  adverse  winds  and  did  not  arrive ; 
the  Tories  were  totally  defeated  on  February  27 
in  a  sharp  fight  at  Moore's  Creek ;  and  Clinton, 
thus  deprived  of  his  allies,  deemed  it  most  pru 
dent  for  a  while  to  keep  his  troops  on  shipboard. 
On  the  12th  of  April  the  patriots  of  North  Caro 
lina  instructed  their  delegates  in  Congress  to  con 
cur  with  other  delegates  in  a  declaration  of  inde 
pendence.  On  the  14th  of  May  Virginia  went 
further,  and  instructed  her  delegates  to  propose 
such  a  declaration.  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  and 
Rhode  Island  expressed  a  willingness  to  concur  in 
any  measures  which  Congress  might  think  best 


THE   CRISIS.  97 

calculated  to  promote  the  general  welfare.  In 
the  course  of  May  town-meetings  throughout  Mas 
sachusetts  expressed  opinions  unanimously  in  fa 
vour  of  independence. 

Massachusetts  had  already,  as  long  ago  as  July, 
1775,  framed  a  new  government  in  which  the  king 
was  not  recognized ;  and  her  example  had  been 
followed  by  New  Hampshire  in  January,  1776, 
and  by  South  Carolina  in  March.  Now  on  the 
15th  of  May  Congress  adopted  a  resolution  ad 
vising  all  the  other  colonies  to  form  new  gov 
ernments,  because  the  king  had  "  withdrawn  his 
protection "  from  the  American  people,  and  all 
governmeuts  deriving  their  powers  from  him  were 
accordingly  set  aside  as  of  no  account.  This  res 
olution  was  almost  equivalent  to  a  declaration  of 
independence,  and  it  was  adopted  only  after  hot 
debate  and  earnest  opposition  from  the  middle 
colonies. 

On  the  7th  of   June,  in  accordance  with  the 
instructions  of  May  14  from  Virginia,   Richard 
Richard  Henry  Lee  submitted  to  Con-  SS^6'8 
gress  the  following  resolutions  :  —  Congress. 

"  That  these  United  Colonies  are,  and  of  right 
ought  to  be,  free  and  independent  States,  that 
they  are  absolved  from  all  allegiance  to  the  Brit 
ish  Crown,  and  that  all  political  connection  be 
tween  them  and  the  State  of  Great  Britain  is,  and 
ought  to  be,  totally  dissolved ; 

"  That   it  is  expedient  forthwith  to  take  the 


98  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

most  effectual  measures  for  forming  foreign  alli 
ances  ; 

"  That  a  plan  of  confederation  be  prepared  and 
transmitted  to  the  respective  colonies  for  their 
consideration  and  approbation." 

This  motion  of  Virginia,  in  which  Independ 
ence  and  Union  went  hand  in  hand,  was  at  once 
seconded  by  Massachusetts,  as  represented  by 
John  Adams.  It  was  opposed  by  John  Dickinson 
and  James  Wilson  of  Pennsylvania,  and  by  Rob 
ert  Livingston  of  New  York,  on  the  ground  that 
the  people  of  the  middle  colonies  were  not  yet 
ready  to  sever  the  connection  with  the  mother 
country.  As  the  result  of  the  discussion  it  was 
decided  to  wait  three  weeks,  in  the  hope  of  hear 
ing  from  all  those  colonies  which  had  not  yet  de 
clared  themselves. 

The  messages  from  those  colonies  came  promptly 
enough.  As  for  Connecticut  and  New  Hamp 
shire,  there  could  be  no  doubt ;  and  their  declara 
tions  for  independence,  on  the  14th  and  15th  of 
June  respectively,  were  simply  dilatory  expres 
sions  of  their  sentiments.  They  were  late,  only 
because  Connecticut  had  no  need  to  form  a  new 
government  at  all,  while  New  Hampshire  had 
formed  one  as  long  ago  as  January.  Their  sup 
port  of  the  proposed  declaration  of  independence 
was  already  secured,  and  it  was  only  in  the  formal 
announcement  of  it  that  they  were  somewhat 
belated.  But  with  the  middle  colonies  it  was  dif- 


THE   CRISIS.  99 

ferent.  There  the  parties  were  more  evenly  bal 
anced,  and  it  was  not  until  the  last  moment  that 
the  decision  was  clearly  pronounced.  This  was 
not  because  they  were  less  patriotic  than  the  other 
colonies,  but  because  their  direct  grievances  were 
fewer,  and  up  to  this  moment  they  had  hoped  that 
the  quarrel  was  one  which  a  change  of  ministry 
in  Great  Britain  might  adjust.  In  the  earlier 
stages  of  the  quarrel  they  had  been  ready  enough 
to  join  hands  with  Massachusetts  and  Virginia. 
It  was  only  on  this  irrevocable  decision  as  to  in 
dependence  that  they  were  slow  to  act. 

But  in  the  course  of  the  month  of  June  their 
responses  to  the  invitation  of  Congress  came  in, 
—  from  Delaware  on  the  14th,  from  New  Jersey 
on  the  22d,  from  Pennsylvania  on  the  24th,  from 
Maryland  on  the  28th.  This  action  of  Tho  middle 
the  middle  colonies  was  avowedly  based  colonies- 
on  the  ground  that,  in  any  event,  united  action 
was  the  thing  most  to  be  desired  ;  so  that,  what 
ever  their  individual  preferences  might  be,  they 
were  ready  to  subordinate  them  to  the  interests  of 
the  whole  country.  The  broad  and  noble  spirit 
of  patriotism  shown  in  their  resolves  is  worthy  of 
no  less  credit  than  the  bold  action  of  the  colonies 
which,  under  the  stimulus  of  direct  aggression, 
first  threw  down  the  gauntlet  to  George  III. 

On  the  1st  of  July,  when  Lee's  motion  was 
taken  up  in  Congress,  all  the  colonies  had  been 
heard  from  except  New  York.  The  circumstances 


100  THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

of  this  central  colony  were  peculiar.  We  have 
already  seen  that  the  Tory  party  was  especially 
strong  in  New  York.  Besides  this,  her  position 
Difficulties  in  was  more  exposed  to  attack  on  all 
New  York.  sides  than  that  of  any  other  state.  As 
the  military  centre  of  the  Union,  her  territory  was 
sure  to  be  the  scene  of  the  most  desperate  fighting. 
She  was  already  threatened  with  invasion  from 
Canada.  As  a  frontier  state  she  was  exposed  to 
the  incursions  of  the  terrible  Iroquois,  and  as  a 
seaboard  state  she  was  open  to  the  attack  of  the 
British  fleet.  At  that  time,  moreover,  the  popu 
lation  of  New  York  numbered  only  about  170,000, 
and  she  ranked  seventh  among  the  thirteen  colo 
nies.  The  military  problem  was  therefore  much 
harder  for  New  York  than  for  Massachusetts  or 
Virginia.  Her  risks  were  greater  than  those  of 
any  other  colony.  For  these  reasons  the  Whig 
party  in  New  York  found  itself  seriously  ham 
pered  in  its  movements,  and  the  1st  of  July  ar 
rived  before  their  delegates  in  Congress  had  been 
instructed  how  to  vote  on  the  question  of  inde 
pendence. 

Richard  Henry  Lee  had  been  suddenly  called 
home  to  Virginia  by  the  illness  of  his  wife,  and 
so  the  task  of  defending  his  motion  fell  upon 
John  Adams  who  had  seconded  it.  His  speech 
on  that  occasion  was  so  able  that  Thomas  Jeffer 
son  afterward  spoke  of  him  as  "  the  Colossus  of 
that  debate."  As  Congress  sat  with  closed  doors 


THE  CRISIS.  10  L 

and  no  report  was  made  of  the  speech,  we  have 
no  definite  knowledge  of  its  arguments.  Fifty 
years  afterwards,  shortly  after  John  Adams's 
death,  Daniel  Webster  wrote  an  imaginary  speech 
containing  what  in  substance  he  might  have  said. 
The  principal  argument  in  opposition  was  made 
by  John  Dickinson,  who  thought  that  before  the 
Americans  finally  committed  themselves  to  a 
deadly  struggle  with  Great  Britain,  they  ought  to 
establish  some  stronger  government  than  the  Con 
tinental  Congress,  and  ought  also  to  secure  a 
promise  of  help  from  some  such  country  as  France. 
This  advice  was  cautious,  but  it  was  not  sound 
and  practical.  War  had  already  begun,  and  if 
we  had  waited  to  agree  upon  some  permanent 
kind  of  government  before  committing  all  the  col 
onies  to  a  formal  defiance  of  Great  Britain,  there 
was  great  danger  that  the  enemy  might  succeed  in 
breaking  up  the  Union  before  it  was  really  formed. 
Besides,  it  is  not  likely  that  France  would  ever 
have  decided  to  go  to  war  in  our  behalf  until  we 
had  shown  that  we  were  able  to  defend  ourselves. 
It  was  now  a  time  when  the  boldest  advice  was 
the  safest. 

During  this  debate  on  the  1st  of  July  Congress 
was  sitting  as  a  committee  of  the  whole, 
and  at  the  close  of  the  day  a  preliminary  tion  of 


vote  was  taken.     Like  all  the  votes  in  July  i  to  4, 

the  Continental  Congress,  it  was  taken 

by   colonies.      The    majority   of    votes    in    each 


102  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

delegation  determined  the  vote  of  that  colony. 
Each  colony  had  one  vote,  and  two-thirds  of  the 
whole  number,  or  nine  colonies  against  four,  were 
necessary  for  a  decision.  On  this  occasion  the 
New  York  delegates  did  not  vote  at  all,  because 
they  had  no  instructions.  One  delegate  from  Del 
aware  voted  yea  and  another  nay  ;  the  third  dele 
gate,  Ca3sar  Rodney,  had  been  down  in  the  lower 
counties  of  his  little  state,  arguing  against  the 
loyalists.  A  special  messenger  had  been  sent  to 
hurry  him  back,  but  he  had  not  yet  arrived,  and 
so  the  vote  of  Delaware  was  divided  and  lost. 
Pennsylvania  declared  in  the  negative  by  four 
votes  against  three.  South  Carolina  also  declared 
in  the  negative.  The  other  nine  colonies  all  voted 
in  the  affirmative,  and  so  the  resolution  received 
just  votes  enough  to  carry  it.  A  very  little  more 
opposition  would  have  defeated  it,  and  would 
probably  have  postponed  the  declaration  for  sev 
eral  weeks. 

The  next  day  Congress  took  the  formal  vote 
upon  the  resolution.  Mr.  Rodney  had  now  ar 
rived,  so  that  the  vote  of  Delaware  was  given  in 
the  affirmative.  John  Dickinson  and  Robert 
Morris  stayed  away,  so  that  Pennsylvania  was  now 
secured  for  the  affirmative  by  three  votes  against 
two.  Though  Dickinson  and  Morris  were  so  slow 
to  believe  it  necessary  or  prudent  to  declare  in 
dependence,  they  were  firm  supporters  of  the  dec 
laration  after  it  was  made.  Without  Morris,  in- 


THE   CRISIS.  103 

deed,  it  is  hard  to  see  how  the  Revolution  could 
have  succeeded.  He  was  the  great  financier  of 
his  time,  and  his  efforts  in  raising  money  for  the 
support  of  our  hard-pressed  armies  were  wonder 
ful. 

When  the  turn  of  the  South  Carolina  delegates 
came  they  changed  their  votes  in  order  that  the 
declaration  might  go  forth  to  the  world  as  the 
unanimous  act  of  the  American  people.  The 
question  was  thus  settled  on  the  2d  of  July,  and 
the  next  thing  was  to  decide  upon  the  form  of  the 
declaration,  which  Jefferson,  who  was  weak  in  de 
bate  but  strong  with  the  pen,  had  already  drafted. 
The  work  was  completed  on  the  4th  of  July,  when 
Jefferson's  draft  was  adopted  and  published  to 
the  world.  Five  days  afterward  the  state  of  New 
York  declared  her  approval  of  these  proceedings. 
The  Rubicon  was  crossed,  and  the  thirteen  Eng 
lish  colonies  had  become  the  United  States  of 
America. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  THE  CENTRE. 

WHILE  these  things  were  going  on  at  Philadel 
phia,  the  coast  of  South  Carolina,  as  well  as  the 
harbour  of  New  York,  was  threatened  by  the 
British  fleet.  When  the  delegates  from  South 
Carolina  gave  their  votes  on  the  question  of  in 
dependence,  they  did,  not  know  but  the  revolu 
tionary  government  in  Charleston  might  already 
have  been  taken  captive  or  scattered  in  flight. 
After  a  stormy  voyage  Sir  Peter  Parker's  squad 
ron  at  length  arrived  off  Cape  Fear  early  in  May, 
and  joined  Sir  Henry  Clinton.  Along  with  Sir 
Lord  Com-  P^61"  came  an  officer  worthy  of  especial 
waiiis.  mention.  Charles,  Earl  Cornwallis,  was 
then  thirty-eight  years  old.  He  had  long  served 
with  distinction  in  the  British  army,  and  had 
lately  reached  the  grade  of  lieutenant-general.  In 
politics  he  was  a  New  Whig,  and  had  on  several 
occasions  signified  his  disapproval  of  the  king's 
policy  toward  America.  As  a  commander  his 
promptness  and  vigour  contrasted  strongly  with 
the  slothfulness  of  General  Howe.  Cornwallis 
was  the  ablest  of  the  British  generals  engaged 
in  the  Revolutionary  War,  and  among  the  public 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR   THE   CENTRE.    105 

men  of  his  time  there  were  few,  if  any,  more 
high-minded,  disinterested,  faithful,  and  pure. 
After  the  war  was  over,  he  won  great  fame  as 
governor-general  of  India  from  1786  to  1794.  He 
was  afterward  raised  to  the  rank  of  marquis  and 
appointed  lord  -  lieutenant  of  Ireland.  In  1805 
he  was  sent  out  again  to  govern  India,  and  died 
there. 

On  the  arrival  of  the  fleet  it  was  decided  to  at 
tack  and  capture  Charleston,  and  overthrow  the 
new  government  there.  General  Charles  Lee  was 
sent  down  by  Congress  to  defend  the  city,  but 
the  South  Carolina  patriots  proved  quite  able  to 
take  care  of  themselves.  On  Sullivan's  Island  in 
Charleston  harbour  Colonel  William  Moultrie 
built  a  low  elastic  fortress  of  palmetto  Battle  of 
logs  supported  by  banks  of  sand  and  S^jJne1" 
mounting  several  heavy  guns.  In  the  28' 1776< 
cannonade  which  took  place  on  the  28th  of  June 
this  rude  structure  escaped  with  little  injury,  while 
its  guns  inflicted  such  serious  damage  upon  the 
fleet  that  the  British  were  obliged  to  abandon  for 
the  present  all  thought  of  taking  Charleston.  In 
the  course  of  July  they  sailed  for  New  York  har 
bour  to  reinforce  General  Howe.  On  the  12th  of 
that  month  the  general's  brother,  Richard,  Lord 
Howe,  arrived  at  Staten  Island  to  take  the  chief 
command  of  the  fleet.  He  was  one  of  the  ablest 
seamen  of  his  time,  and  was  a  favourite  with  his 
sailors,  by  whom,  on  account  of  his  swarthy  com- 


106  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

plexion,  he  was  familiarly  known  as  "  Black 
Dick."  Lord  Howe  and  his  brother  were  author 
ized  to  offer  terms  to  the  Americans  and  endeavour 
to  restore  peace  by  negotiation.  It  was  not  easy, 
however,  to  find  any  one  in  America  with  whom 
Lord  Howe's  *°  neg°tiate.  Lord  Howe  was  sincerely 
w^Jconcii-  desirous  of  making  peace  and  doing 
something  to  heal  the  troubles  which  had 
brought  on  the  war ;  and  he  seems  to  have  sup 
posed  that  some  good  might  be  effected  by  private 
interviews  with  leading  Americans.  To  send  a 
message  to  Congress  was,  of  course,  not  to  be 
thought  of ;  for  that  would  be  equivalent  to  rec 
ognizing  Congress  as  a  body  entitled  to  speak 
for  the  American  people.  He  brought  with  him 
an  assurance  of  amnesty  and  pardon  for  all  such 
rebels  as  would  lay  down  their  arms,  and  decided 
that  it  would  be  best  to  send  it  to  the  American 
commander ;  but  as  it  was  not  proper  to  recog 
nize  the  military  rank  which  had  been  conferred 
upon  Washington  by  a  revolutionary  body,  he  ad 
dressed  his  message  to  "  George  Washington, 
Esq.,"  as  to  a  private  citizen.  When  Washing 
ton  refused  to  receive  such  a  message,  his  lord 
ship  could  think  of  no  one  else  to  approach  except 
the  royal  governors.  But  they  had  all  fled,  ex 
cept  Governor  Franklin  of  New  Jersey,  who  was 
under  close  confinement  in  East  Windsor,  Con 
necticut.  All  British  authority  in  the  United 
States  had  disappeared,  and  there  was  no  one  for 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR   THE   CENTRE.     107 

Lord  Howe  to  negotiate  with,  unless  he  should 
bethink  himself  of  some  way  of  laying  his  case 
before  Congress. 

Military  operations  were  now  taken  up  in  ear 
nest  by  the  British,  and  were  briskly  carried  on 
for  nearly  six  months.  They  were  for  the  most 
part  concentrated  upon  the  state  of  New  York. 
Before  1776  it  was  Massachusetts  that  was  the 
chief  object  of  military  measures  on  the  part  of 
the  British.  That  was  the  colony  that  since  the 
summer  of  1774  had  defied  the  king's 
troops  and  set  at  naught  the  authority 
of  Parliament ;  and  the  first  object  of  plan,  doe  to 
the  British  was  to  make  an  example  of  the  colonies 

intheDerla- 

that    COlony,    tO    Suppress     the     rebellion     ration  of  In 
dependence. 

there,  and  to  reinstate  the  royal  govern 
ment.  The  king  believed  that  it  would  not  take 
long  to  do  this,  and  there  is  some  reason  for  sup 
posing  that  if  he  had  succeeded  in  humbling 
Massachusetts,  he  would  have  been  ready  to  listen 
to  Hutchinson's  request  that  the  vindictive  acts 
of  April,  1774,  should  be  repealed  and  the  char 
ter  restored.  At  all  events,  he  seems  to  have  felt 
confident  that  things  could  soon  be  made  so  quiet 
that  Hutchinson  could  return  and  resume  the 
office  of  governor.  If  the  king  and  his  friends 
had  not  entertained  such  ill-founded  hopes,  they 
would  not  have  been  so  ready  to  resort  to  violent 
measures.  They  made  the  fatal  mistake  of  sup 
posing  that  such  a  man  as  Samuel  Adams  repre- 


108  THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

sented  only  a  small  party  and  not  the  majority  of 
the  people.  They  had  also  supposed  that  the 
other  colonies  would  not  make  common  cause 
with  Massachusetts.  But  now,  before  they  had 
accomplished  any  of  their  objects,  and  while  their 
troops  had  even  been  driven  from  Boston,  they 
found  that  the  rebellion  had  spread  through  the 
whole  country.  They  had  a  belligerent  govern 
ment  to  confront,  and  must  now  enter  upon  the 
task  of  conquering  the  United  States. 

The  first  and  most  obvious  method  of  attempt 
ing  this  was  to  strike  at  New  York  as 
British  con-     the  military  centre.      In   such  a  plan 
their  attack     everything  seemed  to  favour  the  British. 

upon  the  rni  ,  , 

state  of  New    The  state   was  comparatively  weak  in 

York.  J . 

population  and  resources  ;  a  large  pro 
portion  of  the  people  were  Tories ;  and  close  at 
hand  on  the  frontier,  which  was  then  in  the  Mo 
hawk  valley,  were  the  most  formidable  Indians 
on  the  continent.  These  Iroquois  had  long  been 
under  the  influence  of  the  famous  Sir  William 
Johnson,  of  Johnson  Hall,  near  Schenectady,  and 
his  son  Sir  John  Johnson.  Their  principal  sa 
chem,  Joseph  Brant,  or  Thayendanegea,  was  con 
nected  by  the  closest  bonds  of  friendship  with  the 
Johnsons,  and  the  latter  were  staunch  Tories.  It 
might  reasonably  be  expected  that  the  entire  force 
of  these  Indians  could  be  enlisted  on  the  British 
side.  The  work  for  the  regular  army  seemed  thus 
to  be  reduced  to  the  single  problem  of  capturing 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  THE  CENTRE.   109 

the  city  of  New  York  and  obtaining  full  control 
of  the  Hudson  river. 

If  this  could  be  done,  the  United  States  would 
be  cut  in  two.  As  the  Americans  had  no  ships  of 
war,  they  could  not  dispute  the  British  command 
of  the  water.  There  was  no  way  in  which  the 
New  England  states  could  hold  communication 

o 

with  the  South  except  across  the  southern  part  of 
the  state  of  New  York.  To  gain  this  central  posi 
tion  would  thus  be  to  deal  a  fatal  blow  to  the 
American  cause,  and  it  seemed  to  the  British  gov 
ernment  that,  with  the  forces  now  in  the  field,  this 
ought  easily  to  be  accomplished.  General  Carle- 
ton  was  ready  to  come  down  from  the  north  by 
way  of  Lake  Champlain,  with  12,000  men,  and 
General  Schuyler  could  scarcely  muster  half  as 
many  to  oppose  him.  On  Staten  Island  there 
were  more  than  25,000  British  troops  ready  to 
attack  New  York,  while  Washington's  utmost  ex 
ertions  had  succeeded  in  getting  together  only 
about  18,000  men  for  the  defence  of  the  city. 
The  American  army  was  as  yet  very  poor  in 
organization  and  discipline,  badly  equipped,  and 
scantily  fed  ;  and  it  seemed  very  doubtful  whether 
it  could  long  keep  the  field  in  the  presence  of 
superior  forces. 

But  in  spite  of  all  these  circumstances,  so 
favourable  to  the  British,  there  was  one  obstacle 
to  their  success  upon  which  at  first  they  did  not 
sufficiently  reckon.  That  obstacle  was  furnished 


110  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

by  the  genius  and  character  of  the  wonderful  man 

who  commanded  the   American  army. 

military          In  Washington  were  combined  all  the 

genius.  .  .  „ 

highest  qualities  ot  a  general,  —  dog 
ged  tenacity  of  purpose,  endless  fertility  in  re 
source,  sleepless  vigilance,  and  unfailing  courage. 
No  enemy  ever  caught  him  unawares,  and  he  never 
let  slip  an  opportunity  of  striking  back.  He  had 
a  rare  geographical  instinct,  always  knew  where 
the  strongest  position  was,  and  how  to  reach  it.  He 
was  a  master  of  the  art  of  concealing  his  own 

O 

plan  and  detecting  his  adversary's.  He  knew 
better  than  to  hazard  everything  upon  the  result 
of  a  single  contest,  and  because  of  the  enemy's 
superior  force  he  was  so  often  obliged  to  refuse 
battle  that  some  of  his  impatient  critics  called  him 
slow ;  but  no  general  was  ever  quicker  in  dealing 
heavy  blows  when  the  proper  moment  arrived. 
He  was  neither  unduly  elated  by  victory  nor  dis 
couraged  by  defeat.  When  all  others  lost  heart 
he  was  bravest ;  and  at  the  very  moment  when 
ruin  seemed  to  stare  him  in  the  face,  he  was  craft 
ily  preparing  disaster  and  confusion  for  the  enemy. 
To  the  highest  qualities  of  a  military  com 
mander  there  were  united  in  Washington  those  of 
a  political  leader.  From  early  youth  he  possessed 
the  art  of  winning  men's  confidence.  He  was 
simple  without  awkwardness,  honest  without  blunt- 
ness,  and  endowed  with  rare  discretion  and  tact. 
His  temper  was  fiery  and  on  occasion  he  could 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR   THE   CENTRE.     Ill 

use  pretty  strong  language,  but  anger  or  disap 
pointment  was  never  allowed  to  disturb  the  justice 
and  kindness  of  his  judgment.  Men  felt  them 
selves  safe  in  putting  entire  trust  in  his  head  and 
his  heart,  and  they  were  never  deceived.  Thus 
he  soon  obtained  such  a  hold  upon  the  people  as 
few  statesmen  have  ever  possessed.  It  was  this 
grand  character  that,  with  his  clear  intelligence 
and  unflagging  industry,  enabled  him  to  lead  the 
nation  triumphantly  through  the  perils  of  the 
Revolutionary  War.  He  had  almost  every  im 
aginable  hardship  to  contend  with,  —  envious  ri 
vals,  treachery  and  mutiny  in  the  camp,  interfer 
ence  on  the  part  of  Congress,  jealousies  between 
the  states,  want  of  men  and  money  ;  yet  all  these 
difficulties  he  vanquished.  Whether  victorious  or 
defeated  on  the  field,  he  baffled  the  enemy  in  the 
first  year's  great  campaign  and  in  the  second 
year's,  and  then  for  four  years  more  upheld  the 
cause  until  heart-sickening  delay  was  ended  in 
glorious  triumph.  It  is  very  doubtful  if  without 
Washington  the  struggle  for  independence  would 
have  succeeded  as  it  did.  Other  men  were  im 
portant,  he  was  indispensable. 

The  first  great  campaign  began,  as  might  have 
been  expected,  with  defeat  on  the  field.  In  order 
to  keep  possession  of  the  city  of  New  York  it  was 
necessary  to  hold  Brooklyn  Heights.  That  was  a 
dangerous  position  for  an  American  force,  because 
it  was  entirely  separated  from  New  York  by  deep 


112  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

water,  and  could  thus  be  cut  off  from  the  rest  of 
the  American  army  by  the  enemy's  fleet.  It  was 
necessary,  however,  for  Washington  either  to  oc 
cupy  Brooklyn  Heights  or  to  give  up  the  city  of 
New  York  without  a  struggle.  But  the  latter 
course  was  out  of  the  question.  It  would  never 
do  to  abandon  the  Whigs  in  New  York  to  the 
tender  mercies  of  the  Tories,  without  at 

Battle  of  0  .    . 

Long  island,  least  one  good  right,  feo  the  position  in 
Brooklyn  must  be  fortified,  and  there 
was  perhaps  one  chance  in  a  hundred  that,  through 
some  blunder  of  the  enemy,  we  might  succeed  in 
holding  it.  Accordingly  9000  men  were  stationed 
on  Brooklyn  Heights  under  Putnam,  who  threw 
forward  about  half  of  this  force,  under  Sullivan 
and  Stirling,  to  defend  the  southern  approaches 
through  the  rugged  country  between  Gowanus 
bay  and  Bedford.  On  the  22d  of  August  General 
Howe  crossed  from  Staten  Island  to  Gravesend 
bay  with  20,000  men,  and  on  the  27th  he  defeated 
Sullivan  and  Stirling  in  what  has  ever  since  been 
known  as  the  battle  of  Long  Island.  About  400 
men  were  killed  and  wounded  on  each  side,  and 
1000  Americans,  including  both  generals,  were 
taken  captive.  A  more  favourable  result  for  the 
Americans  was  not  to  be  expected,  as  the  British 
outnumbered  them  four  to  one,  and  could  there 
fore  march  where  they  pleased  and  turn  the  Amer 
ican  flank  without  incurring  the  slightest  risk. 

O  O 

The  wonder  is,  not  that  5000  half-trained  soldier 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  THE  CENTRE.  113 

were  defeated  by  20,000  veterans,  but  that  they 
should  have  given  General  Howe  a  good  day's 
work  in  defeating  them. 

The  American  forces  were  now  withdrawn  into 
their  works  on  Brooklyn  Heights,  and  Howe  ad 
vanced  to  besiege  them.     During  the  next  two 
days  Washington  collected  boats  and  on 
the  night  of  the  29th  conveyed  the  army  ton's  skii- 

J  -_      ,        ful  retreat. 

across  the  East  River  to  JNew  York. 
With  the  enemy's  fleet  patrolling  the  harbour 
and  their  army  watching  the  works,  this  was  a 
most  remarkable  performance.  To  this  day  one 
cannot  understand,  unless  011  the  supposition  that 
the  British  were  completely  dazed  and  moon 
struck,  how  Washington  could  have  done  it. 

People  were  much  disheartened  by  the  defeat 
on  Long  Island  and  the  immediate  prospect  of 
losing    New    York.      Lord    Howe    turned    his 
thoughts  once  more  to  negotiation,  and  at  length, 
on  September  11,  succeeded  in  obtaining  an  in 
formal    interview   with    Franklin,   John    Adams, 
and  Edward  Rutledge.     But  nothing  was  accom 
plished,   and  seventeen  eventful  months  elapsed 
before  the  British  again  seriously  tried  negotia 
tion.    General  Howe  had  extended  his  lines  north 
ward,  and  on  the  15th  his  army  crossed  Howe  takea 
the  East   River  in   boats,  and   landed  jgjJ.Yi£k* 
near  the  site   of  Thirty-Fourth  street.   1776> 
On  the  same  day  Washington  completed  the  work 
of  evacuating  the  city.     His  army  was  drawn  up 


114  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

across  the  island  from  the  mouth  of  Harlem  river 
to  Fort  Washington,  and  over  on  the  Jersey  side 
of  the  Hudson,  opposite  Fort  Washington,  a  de 
tachment  occupied  Fort  Lee.  It  was  hoped  that 
these  two  forts  would  be  able  to  prevent  British 
ships  from  going  up  the  Hudson  river,  but  this 
hope  soon  proved  to  be  delusive. 

On  the  16th  General  Howe  tried  to  break 
through  the  centre  of  Washington's  position  at 
Harlem  Heights,  but  after  losing  300  men  he 
gave  up  the  attempt,  and  spent  the  next  three 
weeks  in  studying  the  situation.  A  sad  incident 
came  now  to  remind  the  people  of  the  sternness 
of  military  law.  Nathan  Hale,  a  young  graduate 
of  Yale  College,  captain  of  a  company  of  Con 
necticut  rangers,  had  been  for  several  days  within 
the  British  lines  gathering  information.  Just  as 
he  had  accomplished  his  purpose,  and  was  on  the 
point  of  departing  with  his  memoranda,  he  was 
arrested  as  a  spy  and  hanged  next  morning,  la 
menting  on  the  gallows  that  he  had  but  one  life 
to  lose  for  his  country. 

As  Howe  deemed  it  prudent  not  to  attack 
Washington  in  front,  he  tried  to  get  around  into 
his  rear,  and  began  on  October  12  by  landing  a 
large  force  at  Throg's  Neck,  in  the  Sound.  But 
Battle  of  Washington  baffled  him  by  changing 
piihi-  Oct  front>  swinging  his  left  wing  northward 
**> 17™'  as  far  as  White  Plains.  After  further 
reflection  Howe  decided  to  try  a  front  attack  once 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  THE  CENTRE.  115 

more ;  on  the  28th  he  assaulted  the  position  at 
White  Plains,  and  carried  one  of  the  outposts, 
losing  twice  as  many  men  as  the  Americans.  Not 
wishing  to  continue  the  fi^ht  at  such  a  disadvan- 

O  O 

tage  he  paused  again,  and  Washington  improved 
the  occasion  by  retiring  to  a  still  stronger  position 
at  Northcastle.  These  movements  had  separated 
Washington's  main  body  from  his  right  wing  at 
Forts  Washington  and  Lee,  and  Howe  now 
changed  his  plan.  Desisting  from  the  attempt 
against  the  American  main  body,  he  moved  south 
ward  against  this  exposed  wing. 

A  sad  catastrophe  now  followed,  which  showed 
how  many  obstacles  Washington  had  to  contend 
with.  It  was  known  that  Carleton's  army  was 
on  the  way  from  Canada.  Congress  was  ner 
vously  afraid  of  losing  its  hold  upon  the  Hudson 
river,  and  Washington  accordingly  selected  Wrest 
Point  as  the  strongest  position  upon  the  river,  to 
be  fortified  and  defended  at  all  hazards.  He  sent 
Heath,  with  3000  men,  to  hold  the  Highland 
passes,  and  went  up  himself  to  inspect  the  situa 
tion  and  give  directions  about  the  new  fortifica 
tions.  He  left  7000  of  his  main  body  at  North- 
castle,  in  charge  of  Lee.  who  had  just  returned 
from  South  Carolina.  He  sent  5000,  under  Put 
nam,  across  the  river  to  Hackensack  ;  and  ordered 
Greene,  who  had  some  5000  men  at  Forts  Wrash- 
ington  and  Lee,  to  prepare  to  evacuate  both  those 
strongholds  and  join  his  forces  to  Putnam's. 


116  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

If  these  orders  had  been  carried  out,  Howe's 
movement  against  Fort  Washington  would  have 
accomplished  but  little,  for  on  reaching  that  place, 
he  would  have  found  nothing  but  empty  works, 
as  at  Brooklyn.  The  American  right  wing  would 
have  been  drawn  together  at  Hackensack,  and  the 
whole  army  could  have  been  concentrated  on 
either  bank  of  the  great  river,  as  the  occasion 
might  seem  to  require.  If  Howe  should  aim  at 
the  Highlands,  it  could  be  kept  close  to  the  river 
and  cover  all  the  passes.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
Howe  should  threaten  the  Congress  at  Philadel 
phia,  the  whole  army  could  be  collected  in  New 
Jersey  to  hold  him  in  check. 

But    Washington's    orders   were    not   obeyed. 

Congress   was    so  uneasy   that   it    sent  word   to 

Greene  to  hold  both  his  forts  as  long  as  he  could. 

Accordingly  he  strengthened  the  garrison  at  Fort 

Washington,  iust  in  time  for  Howe  to 

Howe  takes  7    J 

jnatorTNov  overwhelm  and  capture  it,  on  the  16th 
of  November,  after  an  obstinate  resist 
ance.  In  killed  and  wounded  the  British  loss 
was  three  times  as  great  as  that  of  the  garrison, 
but  the  Americans  were  in  no  condition  to  afford 
the  loss  of  3000  men  taken  prisoners.  It  was  a 
terrible  blow.  On  the  19th  Greene  barely  suc 
ceeded  in  escaping  from  Fort  Lee,  with  his  re 
maining  2000  men,  but  without  his  cannon  and 
stores. 

Bad  as  the  situation  was,  however,  it  did  not 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR   THE   CENTRE.     Ill 

become  really  alarming  until  it  was  complicated 
with  the  misconduct  of  General  Lee.  Washing 
ton  had  returned  from  West  Point  on  the  14th, 
too  late  to  prevent  the  catastrophe  ;  but  after  all 
it  was  only  necessary  for  Lee's  wing  of  the  army 
to  cross  the  river,  and  there  would  be  a  solid  force 
of  14,000  men  on  the  Jersey  side,  able  to  con 
front  the  enemy  on  something  like  equal  terms, 
for  Howe  had  to  keep  a  good  many  of  his  troops 
in  New  York.  On  the  17th  Washington  ordered 
Lee  to  come  over  and  join  him  ;  but  Lee  Treacheryof 
disobeyed,  and  in  spite  of  repeated  or-  CharlesLee- 
ders  from  Washington  he  stayed  at  Northcastle 
till  the  2d  of  December.  General  Ward  had  some 
time  since  resigned,  so  that  Lee  now  ranked  next 
to  Washington.  A  good  many  people  were  find 
ing  fault  with  the  latter  for  losing  the  3000  men 
at  Fort  Washington,  although,  as  we  have  seen, 
that  was  not  his  fault  but  the  fault  of  Congress. 

O 

Lee  now  felt  that  if  Washington  were  ruined,  he 
would  surely  become  his  successor  in  the  command 
of  the  army,  and  so,  instead  of  obeying  his  orders, 
he  spent  his  time  in  writing  letters  calculated  to 
injure  him. 

Lee's  disobedience  thus  broke  the  army  in  two, 
and  did  more  for  the  British  than  they  had  been 
able  to  do  for  themselves  since  they  Washiugton'8 
started  from  Staten  Island.  It  was  the  SSESTgh  New 
cause  of  Washington's  flight  through  Jer9ey> 
New  Jersey,  ending  on  the  8th  of  December,  when 


118  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

he  put  himself  behind  the  Delaware  river,  with 
scarcely  3000  men.  Here  was  another  difficulty. 
The  American  soldiers  were  enlisted  for  short 
terms,  and  when  they  were  discouraged,  as  at 
present,  they  were  apt  to  insist  upon  going  home 
as  soon  as  their  time  had  expired.  It  was  gener 
ally  believed  that  Washington's  army  would  thus 
fall  to  pieces  within  a  few  days.  Howe  did  not 
think  it  worth  while  to  be  at  the  trouble  of  col 
lecting  boats  wherewith  to  follow  him  across  the 
Delaware.  Congress  fled  to  Baltimore.  People 
in  New  Jersey  began  taking  the  oath  of  allegiance 
to  the  crown.  Howe  received  the  news  that  he 
had  been  knighted  for  his  victory  on  Long  Island, 
and  he  returned  to  New  York  to  celebrate  the  oc 
casion. 

While  the  case  looked  so  desperate  for  Wash 
ington,  events  at  the  north  had  taken  a  less  un 
favourable    turn.     Carleton     had    embarked    911 
Lake   Champlain  early  in  the    autumn  with  his 
fine  army  and  fleet.     Arnold  had  fitted 

Arnold's    na-  ..  . 

vai  battle  at  up  a  small  fleet  to  oppose  his  advance, 
and,  Oct.  ii,  and  on  the  llth  of  October  there  had 

177G. 

been  a  fierce  naval  battle  between  the 
two  near  Valcour  Island,  in  which  Arnold  was  de 
feated,  while  Carleton  suffered  serious  damage. 
The  British  general  then  advanced  upon  Ticon- 
deroga,  but  suddenly  made  up  his  mind  that  the 
season  was  too  late  for  operations  in  that  latitude. 
The  resistance  he  had  encountered  seems  to  have 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  THE   CENTRE.     119 

made  him  despair  of  achieving  any  speedy  success 
in  that  quarter,  and  on  the  3d  of  November  he 
started  back  for  Canada.  This  retreat  relieved 
General  Schuyler  at  Albany  of  immediate  cause 
for  anxiety,  and  presently  he  detached  seven  regi 
ments  to  go  southward  to  Washington's  assistance. 
On  the  2d  of  December  Lee  crossed  the  Hud 
son  with  4000  men,  and  proceeded  slowly  to  Mor- 
ristown.  Just  what  he  designed  to  do  was  never 
known,  but  clearly  he  had  no  intention  of  going 
beyond  the  Delaware  to  assist  Washington,  whom 
he  believed  to  be  ruined.  Perhaps  he  thought 
Morristown  a  desirable  position  to  hold,  as  it  cer 
tainly  was.  Whatever  his  plans  may  have  been, 
they  were  nipped  in  the  bud.  For  some  unknown 
reason  he  passed  the  night  of  the  12th  at  an  un 
guarded  tavern,  about  four  miles  from  his  army  ; 
and  there  he  was  captured  next  morning 

,  c     ,^    .  J .   ,        ,  ,         Charlea  Lee 

by   a  party  ot    Uritish  dragoons,  who   is  captured 

.     ,   ,  .  by  British 

carried  him  off  to  their  camp  at  Prince-  dragoons, 

Dec.  13,1776. 

ton.  Ine  dragoons  were  very  gleeful 
over  this  unexpected  exploit,  but  really  they  could 
not  have  done  the  Americans  a  greater  service 
than  to  rid  them  of  such  a  worthless  creature. 
The  capture  of  Lee  came  in  the  nick  of  time,  for 
it  set  free  his  men  to  go  to  the  aid  of  Washing 
ton.  Even  after  this  force  and  that  sent  by 
Schuyler  had  reached  the  commander-in-chief,  he 
found  he  had  only  6000  men  fit  for  duty. 

With  this     little  force  Washington   instantly 


120  THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

took  the  offensive.  It  was  the  turning-point  in 
his  career  and  in  the  history  of  the  Revolutionary 
War.  On  Christmas,  1776,  and  the  following 
nine  days,  all  Washington's  most  brilliant  pow 
ers  were  displayed.  The  British  centre,  10,000 
Batti  f  strong,  lay  at  Princeton.  The  principal 
2Gei77G'Dec'  generals>  thinking  the  serious  business 
of  the  war  ended,  had  gone  to  New 
York.  An  advanced  party  of  Hessians,  1000 
strong,  was  posted  on  the  bank  of  the  Delaware 
at  Trenton,  and  another  one  lower  down,  at  Bur 
lington.  Washington  decided  to  attack  both 
these  outposts,  and  arranged  his  troops  accord 
ingly,  but  when  Christmas  night  arrived,  the 
river  was  filled  with  great  blocks  of  floating  ice, 
and  the  only  division  which  succeeded  in  crossing 
was  the  one  that  Washington  led  in  person.  It 
was  less  than  2500  in  number,  but  the  moment 
had  come  when  the  boldest  course  was  the  safest. 
By  daybreak  Washington  had  surprised  the  Hes 
sians  at  Trenton  and  captured  them  all.  The 
outpost  at  Burlington,  on  hearing  the  news,  re 
treated  to  Princeton.  By  the  31st  Washington 
had  got  all  his  available  force  across  to  Trenton. 
Some  of  them  were  raw  recruits  just  come  in  to 
replace  others  who  had  just  gone  home.  At  this 
critical  moment  the  army  was  nearly  helpless  for 
want  of  money,  and  on  New  Year's  morning  Rob 
ert  Morris  was  knocking  at  door  after  door  in 
Philadelphia,  waking  up  his  friends  to  borrow  the 


Washinqfons  Campaign's 
|(A, 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR   THE  CENTRE.     121 

fifty  thousand  dollars  which  he  sent  off  to  Tren 
ton  before  noon.  The  next  day  Cornwallis  ar 
rived  at  Princeton,  and  taking  with  him  all  the 
army,  except  a  rear-guard  of  2000  men  left  to 
protect  his  communications,  came  on  toward  Tren 
ton. 

When  he  reached  that  town,  late  in  the  after 
noon,  he  found  Washington  entrenched  behind  a 
small  creek  just  south  of  the  town,  with  his  back 
toward  the  Delaware  river.  "  Oho  ! "  said  Corn 
wallis,  "  at  last  we  have  run  down  the  old  fox,  and 
we  will  bag  him  in  the  morning."  He  sent  back 
to  Princeton,  and  ordered  the  rear-guard  to  come 
up.  He  expected  next  morning  to  cross  the 
creek  above  Washington's  right,  and  then  press 
him  back  against  the  broad  and  deep  river,  and 
compel  him  to  surrender.  Cornwallis  was  by  no 
means  a  careless  general,  but  he  seems  to  have 
gone  to  bed  on  that  memorable  night  and  slept 
the  sleep  of  the  just. 

Washington  meanwhile  was  wide  awake.  He 
kept  his  front  line  noisily  at  work  digging  and  en 
trenching,  and  made  a  fine  show  with  his  camp- 
fires.  Then  he  marched  his  army  to  the  right 
and  across  the  creek,  and  got  around  Cornwallis's 
left  wing  and  into  his  rear,  and  so  went  on  gayly 
toward  Princeton.  At  daybreak  he  en- 

J  Battle  of 

countered  the  British  rear-guard,  fought  Princeton, 

a  sharp  battle  with  it  and  sent  it  flying, 

with  the  loss  of  one-fourth  of  its  number.     The 


122          THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

booming  guns  aroused  Cornwallis  too  late.  To 
preserve  his  communications  with  New  York,  he 
was  obliged  to  retreat  with  all  haste  upon  New 
Brunswick,  while  Washington's  victorious  army 
pushed  on  and  occupied  the  strong  position  at 
Morristown. 

There  was  small  hope  of  dislodging  such  a  gen 
eral  from  such  a  position.  But  to  leave  Washing 
ton  in  possession  of  Morristown  was  to  resign  to 
him  the  laurels  of  this  half-year's  work.  For 
that  position  guarded  the  Highlands  of  the  Hud 
son  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  roads  to  Philadel 
phia  on  the  other.  Except  that  the  British  had 
taken  the  city  of  New  York  —  which  from  the 
start  was  almost  a  foregone  conclusion  —  they 
were  no  better  off  than  in  July  when  Lord  Howe 
had  landed  on  Staten  Island.  In  nine  days  the 
tables  had  been  completely  turned.  The  attack 
upon  an  outpost  had  developed  into  a  campaign 
which  quite  retrieved  the  situation.  The  ill- 
timed  interference  of  Congress,  which  had  begun 
the  series  of  disasters,  was  remedied  ;  the  treach 
ery  of  Lee  was  checkmated  ;  and  the  cause  of 
American  Independence,  which  on  Christmas 
Eve  had  seemed  hopeless,  was  now  fairly  set  on 
its  feet.  Earlier  successes  had  been  local ;  this 
was  continental.  Seldom  has  so  much  been  done 
with  such  slender  means. 

The  American  war  had  begun  to  awaken  inter 
est  in  Europe,  especially  in  France,  whither 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  THE  CENTRE.     123 

Franklin,  with  Silas  Deane  and  Arthur  Lee,  had 
been  sent  to  seek  for  military  aid.    The 

J  Effects  of  the 

French  government  was  not  yet  ready  campaign,  in 
to  make  an  alliance  with  the  United 
States,  but  money  and  arms  were  secretly  sent 
over  to  Congress.  Several  young  French  nobles 
had  asked  the  king's  permission  to  go  to  America, 
but  it  was  refused,  and  for  the  sake  of  keeping 
up  appearances  the  refusal  had  something  of  the 
air  of  a  reprimand.  The  king  did  not  wish  to  of 
fend  Great  Britain  prematurely.  One  of  these 
nobles  was  Lafayette,  then  eighteen  years  of  age, 
who  fitted  up  a  ship  at  his  own  expense,  and 
sailed  from  Bordeaux  in  April,  1777,  in  spite  of 
the  royal  prohibition,  taking  with  him  Kalb  and 
other  officers.  Lafayette  and  Kalb,  with  the 
Poles,  Kosciuszko  and  Pulaski,  who  had  come 
some  time  before,  and  the  German  Steuben,  who 
came  in  the  following  December,  were  the  five 
most  eminent  foreigners  who  received  commissions 
in  the  Continental  army. 

During  the  winter  season  at  Morristown  the  ef 
forts  of  Washington  were  directed  toward  the  es 
tablishment  of  a  regular  army  to  be  kept  together 
for  three  years  or  so  long  as  the  war  should  last. 
Hitherto  the  military  preparations  of  Congress 
had  been  absurdly  weak.  Squads  of  militia  had 
been  enlisted  for  terms  of  three  or  six  months, 
as  if  there  were  any  likelihood  of  the  war  being 
ended  within  such  a  period.  While  the  men  thus 


124  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

kept  coming  and  going,  it  was  difficult  either  to 

maintain  discipline   or  to  carry  out  any  series  of 

military  operations.     Accordingly  Con- 

Difficultyin  J  „ 

raising  an       gress  now  proceeded  to  call   upon  the 

army. 

states  for  an  army  of  80,000  men  to 
serve  during  the  war.  The  enlisting  was  to  be 
done  by  the  states,  but  the  money  was  to  be  fur 
nished  by  Congress.  Not  half  that  number  of 
men  were  actually  obtained.  The  Continental 
army  was  larger  in  1777  than  in  any  other  year, 
but  the  highest  number  it  reached  was  only 
34,820.  In  addition  to  these  about  34,000  militia 
turned  out  in  the  course  of  the  year.  An  army 
of  80,000  would  have  taken  about  the  same  pro 
portion  of  all  the  righting  men  in  the  country  as 
an  army  of  1,000,000  in  our  great  Civil  War. 
Now  in  our  Civil  War  the  Union  army  grew 
with  the  occasion  until  it  numbered  more  than 
1,000,000.  But  in  the  Revolutionary  War  the 
Continental  army  was  not  only  never  equal  to  the 
occasion,  but  it  kept  diminishing  till  in  1781  it 
numbered  only  13,292.  This  was  because  the 
Continental  Congress  had  no  power  to  enforce  its 
decrees.  It  could  only  ask  for  troops  and  it  could 
only  ask  for  money.  It  found  just  the  same  diffi 
culty  in  getting  anything  that  the  British  ministry 
and  the  royal  governors  used  to  find,  —  the  very 
same  difficulty  that  led  Grenville  to  devise  the 
Stamp  Act.  Everything  had  to  be  talked  over  in 
thirteen  different  legislatures,  one  state  would 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR   THE   CENTRE.     125 

wait  to  see  what  another  was  going  to  do,  and 
meanwhile  Washington  was  expected  to  fight  bat 
tles  before  his  army  was  fit  to  take  the  field. 
Something  was  gained,  no  doubt,  by  Congress 
furnishing  the  money.  But  as  Congress  could 
not  tax  anybody,  it  had  no  means  of  raising  a  rev 
enue,  except  to  beg,  borrow,  or  issue  its  promis 
sory  notes,  the  so-called  Continental  paper  cur 
rency. 

While  Congress  was  trying  to  raise  an  adequate 
army,  the  British  ministry  laid  its  plans 

.         1,  •  rpi  The  British 

tor  the   summer   campaign.      ine   con-  plan  for  con- 

Tk.r          ir  i          quering  New 

quest  of  the  state  of  .New  lork  must  be  Yorkiu 
completed  at  all  hazards  ;  and  to  this 
end  a  threefold   system  of  movements    was  de 
vised  :  — 

First,  the  army  in  Canada  was  to  advance 
upon  Ticond^roga,  capture  it,  and  descend  the 
Hudson  as  far  as  Albany.  This  work  was  now 
entrusted  to  General  Burgoyne. 

Secondly,  in  order  to  make  sure  of  efficient 
support  from  the  Six  Nations  and  the  Tories  of 
the  frontier,  a  small  force  under  Colonel  Barry 
St.  Leger  was  to  go  up  the  St.  Lawrence  to  Lake 
Ontario,  land  at  Oswego,  and  march  down  the 
Mohawk  valley  to  reinforce  Burgoyne  on  the 
Hudson. 

Thirdly,  after  leaving  a  sufficient  force  to  hold 
the  city  of  New  York,  the  main  army,  under  Sir 
William  Howe,  was  to  ascend  the  Hudson,  cap- 


126  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

ture  the  forts  in  the  Highlands,  and  keep  on  to 
Albany,  so  as  to  effect  a  junction  with  Burgoyne 
and  St.  Leger. 

It  was  thought  that  such  an  imposing  display 
of  military  force  would  make  the  Tory  party  su 
preme  in  New  York,  put  an  end  to  all  resistance 
there,  and  effectually  cut  the  United  States  in 
two.  Then  if  the  southern  states  on  the  one 
hand  and  the  New  England  states  on  the  other 
did  not  hasten  to  submit,  they  might  afterward 
be  attacked  separately  and  subdued. 

In  this  plan  the  ministry  made  the  fatal  mis 
take  of  underrating  the  strength  of  the  feeling 
which,  from  one  end  of  the  United  States  to  the 
other,  was  setting  itself  every  day  more  and  more 
decidedly  against  the  Tories  and  in  favour  of 
independence.  This  feeling  grew  as  fast  as  the 
anti-slavery  feeling  grew  among  the  northern  peo 
ple  during  our  Civil  War.  In  1861  President 
Lincoln  thought  it  necessary  to  rebuke  his  gen 
erals  who  were  too  forward  in  setting  free  the 
slaves  of  persons  engaged  in  rebellion  against 
the  United  States.  In  1862  he  announced  his 
purpose  to  emancipate  all  such  slaves ;  and  then 
it  took  less  than  three  years  to  put  an  end  to  slav 
ery  forever.  It  was  just  so  with  the  sentiment  in 
favour  of  separation  from  Great  Britain.  In  July, 
1775,  Thomas  Jefferson  expressly  declared  that 
the  Americans  had  not  raised  armies  with  any  in 
tention  of  declaring  their  independence  of  the 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR   THE   CENTRE.    127 

mother-country.  In  July,  1776,  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  written  by  Jefferson,  was  pro 
claimed  to  the  world,  though  the  consent  of  the 
middle  colonies  and  of  South  Carolina  seemed 
somewhat  reluctant.  By  the  summer  of  1777 
the  Tories  were  almost  everywhere  in  a  hopeless 
minority.  Every  day  of  warfare,  showing  Great 
Britain  more  and  more  clearly  as  an  enemy  to 
be  got  rid  of,  diminished  their  strength ;  so  that, 
even  in  New  York  and  South  Carolina,  where 
they  were  strongest,  it  would  not  do  for  the  Brit 
ish  ministry  to  count  too  much  upon  any  support 
they  might  give. 

It  was  natural  enough  that  King  George  and 
his  ministers  should  fail  to  understand  all  this, 
but  their  mistake  was  their  ruin.  If  they  had 
understood  that  Burgoyne's  march  from  Lake 
Champlain  to  the  Hudson  river  was  to  be  a  march 
through  a  country  thoroughly  hostile,  perhaps  they 
would  not  have  been  so  ready  to  send  him  on  such 
a  dangerous  expedition.  It  would  have  been  much 
easier  and  safer  to  have  sent  his  army  by  sea 
to  New  York,  to  reinforce  Sir  William  Howe. 
Threatening  movements  might  have  been  made 
by  some  of  the  Canada  forces  against  Ticonderoga, 
so  as  to  keep  Schuyler  busy  in  that  quarter ;  and 
then  the  army  at  New  York,  thus  increased  to 
nearly  40,000  men,  might  have  had  a  fair  chance 
of  overwhelming  Washington  by  sheer  weight  of 
numbers.  Such  a  plan  might  have  failed,  but  it  is 


128  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

not  likely  that  it  would  have  led  to  the  surrender 
of  the  British  army.  And  if  they  could  have 
disposed  of  Washington,  the  British  might  have 
succeeded.  It  was  more  necessary  for  them  to  get 
rid  of  him  than  to  march  up  and  down  the  val 
ley  of  the  Hudson.  But  it  was  not  strange  that 
they  did  not  see  this  as  we  do.  It  is  always  easy 
enough  to  be  wise  after  things  have  happened. 

Even  as  it  was,  if  their  plan  had  really  been 
followed,  they  might  have  succeeded.  If  Howe's 
army  had  gone  up  to  meet  Burgoyne,  the  history 
of  the  year  1777  would  have  been  very  different 
from  what  it  was.  We  shall  presently  see  why 
it  did  not  do  so.  Let  us  now  recount  the  fortunes 
of  Burgoyne  and  St.  Leger. 

Burgoyne  came  up  Lake  Champlain  in  June, 
and  easily  won  Ticonderoga,  because  the  Ameri 
cans  had  failed  to  secure  a  neighbouring  position 
Burgoyne  which  commanded  the  fortress.  Bur- 


govne  *°°k  Ticonderoga  from  Mount 
5,  in7.  Defiance,  just  as  the  Americans  would 
have  taken  Boston  from  Bunker  Hill,  if  they  had 
been  able  to  stay  there,  just  as  they  afterward  did 
take  it  from  Dorchester  Heights,  and  just  as 
Howe  took  New  York  after  he  had  won  Brooklyn 
Heights.  When  you  have  secured  a  position  from 
which  you  can  kill  the  enemy  twice  as  fast  as  he 
can  kill  you,  he  must  of  course  retire  from  the 
situation  ;  and  the  sooner  he  goes,  the  better 
chance  he  has  of  living  to  fight  another  day.  The 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR   THE   CENTRE-    129 

same  principle  worked  in  all  these  cases,  and  it 
worked  with  General  Howe  at  Harlem  Heights 
and  at  White  Plains. 

When  it  was  known  that  Burgoyne  had  taken 
Ticonderoga,  there  was  dreadful  dismay  in  Amer 
ica  and  keen  disappointment  among  those  Whigs 
in  England  whose  declared  sympathies  were  with 
us.  George  III.  was  beside  himself  with  glee, 
and  thought  that  the  Americans  were  finally  de 
feated  and  disposed  of.  But  they  were  all  mis 
taken.  The  garrison  of  Ticonderoga  had  taken 
the  alarm  and  retreated,  so  that  Burgoyne  cap 
tured  only  an  empty  fortress.  He  left  1000  men 
in  charge  of  it,  and  then  pressed  on  into  the  wil 
derness  between  Lake  Champlain  and  the  upper 
waters  of  the  Hudson  river.  His  real  danger  was 
now  beginning  to  show  itself,  and  every  day  it 
could  be  seen  more  distinctly.  He  was  plunging 
into  a  forest,  far  away  from  all  possible  support 
from  behind,  and  as  he  went  on  he  found  that 
there  were  not  Tories  enough  in  that  part  of  the 
country  to  be  of  any  use  to  him.  As  Burgoyne 
advanced,  General  Schuyler  prudently  retreated, 
and  used  up  the  enemy's  time  by  breaking  down 
bridges  and  putting  every  possible  obstacle  in  his 
way.  Schuyler  was  a  rare  man,  thoroughly  disin 
terested  and  full  of  sound  sense  ;  but  he  had  many 
political  enemies  who  were  trying  to  pull  him 
down.  A  large  part  of  his  army  was  made  up  of 
New  England  men,  who  hated  him  partly  for  the 


130          THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

mere  reason  that  he  was  a  New  Yorker,  and  partly 
because  as  such  he  had  taken  part  in  the  long 
quarrel  between  New  York  and  New  Hampshire 
over  the  possession  of  the  Green  Mountains.  The 
disaffection  toward  Schuyler  was  fomented  by 
General  Horatio  Gates,  who  had  for  some  time 
held  command  under  him,  but  was  now  in  Phila- 
schuyier  delphia  currying  favour  with  the  dele- 
and  Gates.  gates  in  Congress,  especially  with  those 
from  New  England,  in  the  hope  of  getting  himself 
appointed  to  the  command  of  the  northern  army 
in  Schuyler 's  place.  Gates  was  an  extremely  weak 
man,  but  so  vain  that  he  really  believed  himself 
equal  to  the  highest  command  that  Congress  could 
be  persuaded  to  give  him.  On  the  battle-field  he 
seems  to  have  been  wanting  even  in  personal  cour 
age,  as  he  certainly  was  in  power  to  handle  his 
troops ;  but  in  society  he  was  quite  a  lion.  He 
had  a  smooth  courteous  manner  and  a  plausible 
tongue  which  paid  little  heed  to  the  difference  be 
tween  truth  and  falsehood.  His  lies  were  not  very 
ingenious,  and  so  they  were  often  detected  and 
pointed  out.  But  while  many  people  were  dis 
gusted  by  his  selfishness  and  trickery,  there  were 
always  some  who  insisted  that  he  was  a  great  gen 
ius.  History  can  point  to  a  good  many  men  like 
General  Gates.  Such  men  sometimes  shine  for 
a  while,  but  sooner  or  later  they  always  come  to 
be  recognized  as  humbugs. 

While  Gates  was  intriguing,  Schuyler  was  do- 


BUF^GDYNES 
QAMP/\IGN. 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR   THE   CENTRE.     131 

ing  all  in  his  power  to  impede  the  enemy's  prog 
ress.  It  was  on  the  night  of  July  5  that  the 
garrison  of  Ticonderoga,  under  General  St.  Clair, 
had  abandoned  the  fortress  and  retreated  south 
ward.  On  the  7th  a  battle  was  fought 
at  Hubbardton  between  St.  Glair's  rear,  Hubbardton, 
under  Seth  Warner,  and  a  portion  of 
the  British  army  under  Fraser  and  Riedesel. 
Warner  was  defeated,  but  only  after  such  an  ob 
stinate  resistance  as  to  check  the  pursuit,  so  that 
by  the  12th  St.  Clair  was  able  to  bring  his  re 
treating  troops  in  safety  to  Fort  Edward,  where 
they  were  united  with  Schuyler's  army.  Schuyler 
managed  his  obstructions  so  well  that  Burgoyne's 
utmost  efforts  were  required  to  push  into  the  wil 
derness  at  the  rate  of  one  mile  per  day  ;  and 
meanwhile  Schuyler  was  collecting  a  force  of 
militia  in  the  Green  Mountains,  under  General 
Lincoln,  to  threaten  Burgoyne  in  the  rear  and  cut 
off  his  communications  with  Lake  Champlain. 

Burgoyne  was  accordingly  marching  into  a 
trap,  and  Schuyler  was  doing  the  best  that  could 
be  done.  But  on  the  first  of  August  the  intri<me 

O  O 

against  him  triumphed  in  Congress,  and  Gates 
was  appointed  to  supersede  him  in  the  command 
of  the  northern  army.  Gates,  however,  did  not 
arrive  upon  the  scene  until  the  19th  of  August, 
and  by  that  time  Burgoyne's  situation  was  evi 
dently  becoming  desperate. 

On  the  last  day  of  July  Burgoyne  reached  Fort 


132          THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

Edward,  which  Schuyler  had  evacuated  just  be 
fore.  Schuyler  crossed  the  Hudson  river,  and 
continued  his  retreat  to  Still  water,  about  thirty 
miles  above  Albany.  It  was  as  far  as  the  Ameri 
can  retreat  was  to  go.  Burgoyne  was  already  get 
ting  short  of  provisions,  and  before  he  could  ad 
vance  much  further  he  needed  a  fresh  supply  of 
horses  to  drag  the  cannon  and  stores.  He  began 
to  realize,  when  too  late,  that  he  had  come  far 
into  an  enemy's  country.  The  hostile  feelings  of 
the  people  were  roused  to  fury  by  the  atrocities 
committed  by  the  Indians  employed  in  Burgoyne's 
army.  The  British  supposed  that  the  savages 
would  prove  very  useful  as  scouts  and  guides,  and 
that  by  offers  of  reward  and  threats  of  punish 
ment  they  might  be  restrained  from  deeds  of  vio 
lence.  They  were  very  unruly,  however,  and  apt 
to  use  the  tomahawk  when  they  found  a  chance. 

The  sad  death  of  Miss  Jane  McCrea  has  been 
described  in  almost  as  many  ways  as  there  have 
been  people  to  describe  it,  but  110  one  really 
knows  how  it  happened.  What  is  really  known 
jane  MC-  *s  tnat>  on  tne  27th  of  July,  wliile  Miss 
McCrea  was  staying  with  her  friend  Mrs. 
McNeil,  near  Fort  Edward,  a  party  of  Indians 
burst  into  the  house  and  carried  off  both  ladies. 
They  were  pursued  by  some  American  soldiers, 
and  a  few  shots  were  exchanged.  In  the  course 
of  the  scrimmage  the  party  got  scattered,  and 
Mrs.  McNeil  was  taken  alone  to  the  British  camp. 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR   THE   CENTRE.     133 

Next  day  an  Indian  came  into  the  camp  with  Miss 
McCrea's  scalp,  which  her  friend  recognized  from 
its  long  silky  hair.  A  search  was  made,  and  the 
body  of  the  poor  girl  was  found  lying  near  a 
spring,  pierced  with  three  bullet-wounds.  The 
Indian's  story,  that  she  was  accidentally  killed  by 
a  volley  from  the  American  soldiers,  may  well 
enough  have  been  true.  It  is  also  known  that  she 
was  betrothed  to  David  Jones,  a  lieutenant  in 
Burgoyne's  army,  and,  as  her  own  home  was  in 
New  Jersey,  her  visit  to  Mrs.  McNeil  may  very 
likely  have  been  part  of  a  plan  for  meeting  her 
lover.  These  facts  were  soon  woven  into  a  story, 
in  which  Jenny  was  said  to  have  been  murdered 
while  on  her  way  to  her  wedding,  escorted  by  a 
party  of  Indians  whom  her  imprudent  lover  had 
sent  to  take  charge  of  her. 

The  people  of  the  neighbouring  counties,  in 
New  York  and  Massachusetts,  enraged  at  the 
death  of  Miss  McCrea  and  alarmed  for  the  safety 
of  their  own  firesides,  began  rising  in  arms. 
Sturdy  recruits  began  marching  to  join  Schuyler 
at  Stillwater  and  Lincoln  at  Manchester  in  the 
Green  Mountains.  Meanwhile  Burgoyne  had 
made  up  his  mind  to  attack  the  village  Battle  of 
of  Bennington,  which  was  Lincoln's  A^nT<fon' 
centre  of  supplies.  By  seizing  these  It7t' 
supplies,  he  could  get  for  himself  what  he  stood 
sorely  in  need  of,  while  at  the  same  time  the  loss 
would  cripple  Lincoln  and  perhaps  oblige  him  to 


134  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

retire  from  the  scene.  Accordingly  1000  Ger 
mans  were  sent  out,  in  two  detachments  under 
colonels  Baum  and  Breymann,  to  capture  the  vil 
lage.  But  instead  they  were  captured  themselves. 
Baum  was  first  outmanoeuvred,  surrounded,  and 
forced  to  surrender  by  John  Stark,  after  a  hot 
fight,  in  which  Baum  was  mortally  wounded. 
Then  Breymann  was  put  to  flight  and  his  troops 
dispersed  by  Seth  Warner.  Of  the  whole  Ger 
man  force,  207  were  killed  or  wounded,  and  at 
least  700  captured.  Not  more  than  70  got  back 
to  the  British  camp.  The  American  loss  in  killed 
and  wounded  was  56. 

This  brilliant  victory  at  Bennington  had  impor 
tant  consequences.  It  checked  Burgoyne's  ad 
vance  until  he  could  get  his  supplies,  and  it  de 
cided  that  Lincoln's  militia  could  get  in  his  rear 
and  cut  off  his  communications  with  Ticonderoga. 
It  furthermore  inspired  the  Americans  with  the 
exulting  hope  that  Burgoyne's  whole  army  could 
be  surrounded  and  forced  to  surrender. 

If,  however,  the  British  had  been  successful  in 
gaining  the  Mohawk  valley  and  ensuring  the  su 
premacy  over  that  region  for  the  Tories,  the  fate 
of  Burgoyne  might  have  been  averted.  The 
Tories  in  that  region,  under  Sir  John  Johnson 
and  Colonel  John  Butler,  were  really  formidable. 
As  for  the  Indians  of  the  Iroquois  league,  they 
had  always  been  friendly  to  the  English  and  hos 
tile  to  the  French ;  but  now,  when  it  came  to  mak- 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR   THE   CENTRE.    135 

ing  their  choice  between  two  kinds  of  English  — 
the  Americans  and  the  British,  they  hesitated  and 
differed  in  opinion.    The  Mohawks  took 
sides  with   the   British  because  of  the  the  Mohawk 

valley. 

friendship  between  Joseph  Brant  and 
the  Johnsons.  The  Cayugas  and  Senecas  fol 
lowed  on  the  same  side  ;  but  the  Onondagas,  in 
the  centre  of  the  confederacy,  remained  neutral, 
and  the  Oneidas  and  Tuscaroras,  under  the  in 
fluence  of  Samuel  Kirkland  and  other  mission 
aries,  showed  active  sympathy  with  the  Americans. 
It  turned  out,  too,  that  the  Whigs  were  much 
stronger  in  the  valley  than  had  been  supposed. 

xAfter  St.  Leger  had  landed  at  Oswego  and 
joined  hands  with  his  Tory  and  Indian  allies,  his 
entire  force  amounted  to  about  1700  men.  The 
principal  obstacle  to  his  progress  toward  the 
Hudson  river  was  Fort  Stanwix,  which  stood 
where  the  city  of  Rome  now  stands.  On  the  3d 
of  August  St.  Leger  reached  Fort  Stanwix  and 
laid  siege  to  it.  The  place  was  garrisoned  by  600 
men  under  Colonel  Peter  Gansevoort,  and  the 
Whig  yeomanry  of  the  neighbourhood,  under  the 
heroic  General  Nicholas  Herkimer,  were  on  the 
way  to  relieve  it,  to  the  number  of  at  least  800. 
Herkimer  made  an  excellent  plan  for  surprising 
St.  Leger  with  an  attack  in  the  rear,  while  the 
garrison  should  sally  forth  and  attack  him  in 
front.  But  St.  Leger's  Indian  scouts  were  more 
nimble  than  Herkimer's  messengers,  so  that  he 


136  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

obtained  his  information  sooner  than  Gansevoort. 

An  ambush  was  skilfully  prepared  by  Brant  in  a 

ravine  near  Oriskany,  and  there,  on  the 

Battle  of  J  ' 

Augkcnn77  6th  of  August,  was  fought  the  most  des 
perate  and  murderous  battle  of  the 
Revolutionary  War.  It  was  a  hand  to  hand  fight, 
in  which  about  800  men  were  engaged  on  each 
side,  and  each  lost  more  than  one-third  of  its 
number.  As  the  Tories  and  Indians  were  giving 
way,  their  retreat  was  hastened  by  the  sounds  of 
battle  from  Fort  Stanwix,  where  the  garrison  was 
making  its  sally  and  driving  back  the  besiegers. 
Herkimer  remained  in  possession  of  the  field  at 
Oriskany,  but  his  plan  had  been  for  the  moment 
thwarted,  and  in  the  battle  he  had  received  a 
wound  from  which  he  died. 

Benedict  Arnold  had  lately  been  sent  by  Wash 
ington  to  be  of  such  assistance  as  he  could  to 
Schuyler.  Arnold  stood  high  in  the  confidence  of 
both  these  generals.  He  had  shown  himself  one 
of  the  ablest  officers  in  the  American  army,  he 
was  especially  skilful  in  getting  good  work  out  of 
raw  troops,  and  he  was  a  great  favourite  with 
his  men.  On  hearing  of  the  danger  of  Fort  Stan 
wix,  Schuyler  sent  him  to  the  rescue,  with  1200 
men.  When  he  was  within  twenty  miles  of  that 
stronghold,  he  contrived,  with  the  aid  of  some 
friendly  Oiieidas  and  a  Tory  captive  whose  life  he 
spared  for  the  purpose,  to  send  on  before  him  ex 
aggerated  reports  of  the  size  of  his  army.  The 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR   THE   CENTRE.    137 

device  accomplished  far  more  than  he  could  have 
expected.     The  obstinate   resistance  at 
Oriskany  had    discouraged    the    Tories  fliffiit._Aug. 
and  angered  the  Indians.     Distrust  and 
dissension  were  already  rife  in  St.  Leger's  camp, 
when  such  reports  came  in  as  to  lead  many  to  be 
lieve  that  Burgoyne  had  been  totally  defeated, 
and  that  the  whole  of  Schuyler's  army,  or  a  great 
part  of  it,  was  coming  up  the  Mohawk.     This 
news  led  to  riot  and  panic  among  the  troops,  and 
on  August  22  St.  Leger  took  to  flight  and  made 
his  way  as  best  he  could  to  his  ships  at  Oswego, 
with  scarcely  the  shred  of  an  army  left.     This 
catastrophe  showed  how  sadly  mistaken  the  Brit 
ish  had  been  in  their  reliance  upon  Tory  help. 

The  battle  of  Bennington  was  fought  on  the 
16th  of  August.  Now  by  the  overthrow  of  St. 
Leger,  six  days  later,  Burgoyne's  situation  had 
become  very  alarming.  It  was  just  in  the  midst 
of  these  events  that  Gates  arrived,  on  August 
19,  and  took  command  of  the  army  at  Still- 
water,  which  was  fast  growing  in  numbers.  Mi 
litia  were  flocking  in,  Arnold's  force  was  returning, 
and  Daniel  Morgan  was  at  hand  with  500  Virgin 
ian  sharpshooters.  Unless  Burgoyne  could  win  a 
battle  against  overwhelming  odds,  there  was  only 
one  thing  that  could  save  him ;  and  that  was  the 
arrival  of  Howe's  army  at  Albany,  according  to 
the  ministry's  programme.  But  Burgoyne  had 
not  yet  heard  a  word  from  Howe  ;  and  Howe 
never  camp. 


138  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

This  failure  of  Howe  to  cooperate  with  Bur- 
goyne  was  no  doubt  the  most  fatal  military  blun 
der  made  by  the  British  in  the  whole  course  of 
the  war.  The  failure  was  of  course  unintentional 
why  Howe  on  Howe's  part.  He  meant  to  extend 
erateS^  sufficient  support  to  Burgoyne,  but  the 
Burgoyne.  trouble  was  that  he  attempted  too  much. 
He  had  another  plan  in  his  mind  at  the  same 
time,  and  between  the  two  he  ended  by  accom 
plishing  nothing.  While  he  kept  one  eye  on  Al 
bany,  he  kept  the  other  on  Philadelphia.  He 
had  not  relished  being  driven  back  across  New 
Jersey  by  Washington,  and  the  hope  of  defeating 
that  general  in  battle,  and  then  pushing  on  to  the 
"  rebel  capital  "  strongly  tempted  him.  In  such 
thoughts  he  was  encouraged  by  the  advice  of  the 
captiVe  General  Lee.  That  unscrupulous  busy 
body  felt  himself  in  great  danger,  for  he  knew 
that  the  British  regarded  him  in  the  light  of  a  de 
serter  from  their  army.  While  his  fate  was  in 
suspense,  he  informed  the  brothers  Howe  that  he 
had  abandoned  the  American  cause,  and  he  of 
fered  them  his  advice  and  counsel  for  the  summer 
campaign.  This  villainy  of  Lee's  was  not  known 
till  eighty  years  afterward,  when  a  paper  of  his 
was  discovered  that  revealed  it  in  all  its  black 
ness.  The  Howes  were  sure  to  pay  some  heed 
to  Lee's  opinions,  because  he  was  supposed  to  have 
acquired  a  thorough  knowledge  of  American  af 
fairs.  He  advised  them  to  begin  by  taking  Phil- 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR   THE   CENTRE.     139 

adelphia,  and  supported  this  plan  by  plausible 
arguments.  Sir  William  Howe  seems  to  have 
thought  that  he  could  accomplish  this  early  in  the 
summer,  and  then  have  his  hands  free  for  what 
ever  might  be  needed  on  the  Hudson  river.  Ac 
cordingly  on  the  12th  of  June  he  started  to  cross 
the  state  of  New  Jersey  with  18,000  men. 

But  Sir  William  had  reckoned  without  his 
host.  In  a  campaign  of  eighteen  days,  Wrashing- 
ton,  with  only  8000  men,  completely  blocked  the 
way  for  him,  and  made  him  give  up  the  game.  The 
popular  histories  do  not  have  much  to  say  about 
these  eighteen  days,  because  they  were  not  marked 
by  battles.  Washington  won  by  his 

.         °  .  .  Washington's 

marvellous  skill  in    choosing  positions  masterly 

,     ,  .  .          campaign  in 

where  Howe  could  not  attack  him  with  New  jersey, 

June,  1777. 

any  chance  ot  success.  Howe  under 
stood  this  and  did  not  attack.  He  could  not  en 
tice  Washington  into  fighting  at  a  disadvantage, 
and  he  could  not  march  on  and  leave  such  an  en 
emy  behind  without  sacrificing  his  own  communi 
cations.  Accordingly  on  June  30  he  gave  up 
his  plan  and  retreated  to  Staten  Island.  If  there 
ever  was  a  general  who  understood  the  useful  art 
of  wasting  his  adversary's  time,  Washington  was 
that  general. 

Howe  now  decided  to  take  his  army  to  Phila 
delphia  by  sea.  He  waited  a  while  till  the  news 
from  the  north  seemed  to  show  that  Burgoyne 
was  carrying  everything  before  him  ;  and  then  he 


140          THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

thought  it  safe  to  start.  He  left  Sir  Henry  Clin 
ton  in  command  at  New  York,  with  7000  men, 
telling  him  to  send  a  small  force  up  the  river  to 
help  Burgoyne,  should  there  be  any  need  of  it, 
which  did  not  then  seem  likely.  Then  he  put  to 
sea  with  his  main  force  of  18,000  men,  and  went 
around  to  the  Delaware  river,  which  he  reached 
at  the  end  of  July,  just  as  Burgoyne  was  reaching 
Fort  Edward. 

Howe's  next  move  was  very  strange.     He  af 
terward  said  that  he  did  not  go  up  the  Delaware 
•river,  because  he  found  that  there  were 
SSIfgemove-  obstructions    and  forts  to  be    passed. 

ment  upon          T>O_I  •    i  j_  i  l  •   j_l 

Philadelphia,  -t>ut  he  might  have  gone  up  a  little  way 
Chesapeake  and  landed  his  forces  on  the  Delaware 
coast  at  a  point  where  a  single  march 
would  have  brought  them  to  Elktoii,  at  the  head 
of  Chesapeake  bay,  about  fifty  miles  southwest 
from  Philadelphia.  Instead  of  this,  he  put  out  to 
sea  again  and  sailed  four  hundred  miles,  to  the 
mouth  of  Chesapeake  bay  and  up  that  bay  to  Elk- 
ton,  where  he  landed  his  men  on  the  25th  of  Au 
gust.  Why  he  took  such  a  roundabout  course 
cannot  be  understood,  unless  he  may  have  at 
tached  importance  to  Lee's  advice  that  the  pres 
ence  of  a  British  squadron  in  Chesapeake  bay 
would  help  to  arouse  the  Tories  in  Maryland. 
The  British  generals  could  not  seem  to  make  up 
their  minds  that  America  was  a  hostile  country. 
Small  blame  to  them,  brave  fellows  that  they 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  THE   CENTRE.     141 

were  !  They  could  not  make  war  against  America 
in  such  a  fierce  spirit  as  that  in  which  France 
would  now  make  war  against  Germany  if  she 
could  see  her  way  clear  to  do  so.  They  were  al 
ways  counting  on  American  sympathy,  and  this 
was  a  will-o'-the-wisp  that  lured  them  to  destruc 
tion. 

On  landing  at  Elkton,  Howe  received  orders 
from  London,  telling  him  to  ascend  the  Hudson 
river  and  support  Burgoyne,  in  any  event.  This 
order  had  left  London  in  May.  It  was  well  for  the 
Americans  that  the  telegraph  had  not  then  been 
invented.  Now  it  was  the  25th  of  August ;  Bur 
goyne  was  in  imminent  peril ;  and  Howe  was 
three  hundred  miles  away  from  him  ! 

All  these  movements  had  been  carefully  watched 
by  Washington ;  and  as  Howe  marched  toward 
Philadelphia  he  found  that  general  blocking  the 
way  at  the  fords  of  the  Brandywine 

J  J  Battle  of  the 

creek.     A  battle  ensued  on  the  llth  of  2*"?W"aL 

Sept.   11,  I  i  *  7. 

September.  It  was  a  well-contested 
battle.  With  11,000  men  against  18,000,  Wash 
ington  could  hardly  have  been  expected  to  win  a 
victory.  He  was  driven  from  the  field,  but  not 
badly  defeated.  He  kept  his  army  well  in  hand, 
and  manoeuvred  so  skilfully  that  the  British  were 
employed  for  two  weeks  in  getting  over  the 
twenty-six  miles  to  Philadelphia. 

Before  Howe  had  reached  that  city,  Congress 
had  moved  away  to  York  in  Pennsylvania.  When 


142  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

he  had  taken  Philadelphia,  he  found  that  he  could 
not  stay  there  without  taking  the  forts  on  the 
Delaware  river  which  prevented  the  British  ships 
from  coming  up  ;  for  by  land  Washington  could 
cut  off  his  supplies,  and  he  could  only  be  sure  of 
them  by  water.  So  Howe  detached  part  of  his 
army  to  reduce  these  forts,  leaving  the  rest  of  it 
at  Germantown,  six  miles  from  Philadelphia.  On 
the  4th  of  October,  Washington  at- 

Battle  of  Ger- 

the  f°rce  at  Germantown  in  such 


a  position  that  defeat  would  have  quite 
destroyed  it.  The  attempt  failed  at  the  critical 
moment  because  of  a  dense  fog  in  which  one 
American  brigade  fired  into  another  and  caused  a 
brief  panic.  The  forts  on  the  Delaware  were  cap 
tured  after  hard  fighting,  and  Washington  went 
into  winter  quarters  at  Valley  Forge. 

The  result  of  the  summer's  work  was  that,  be 
cause  Howe  had  made  several  mistakes  and  Wash 
ington  had  taken  the  utmost  advantage  of  every 
one  of  them,  the  whole  British  plan  was  spoiled. 
Howe  had  used  up  the  whole  season  in  getting  to 
Philadelphia,  and  Washington's  activity  had  also 
kept  Sir  Henry  Clinton's  attention  so  much  occu 
pied  with  what  was  going  on  about  the  Delaware 
river  as  to  prevent  him  from  sending  aid  to  the 
northward  until  it  was  too  late.  Sir  Henry  was 
once  actually  obliged  to  send  reinforcements  to 
Howe. 

Thus  Burgoyne  was  left  to  himself.     He  sup- 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR   THE   CENTRE.     143 

posed  that  Howe  was  coming  up  the  Hudson 
river  to  meet  him,  and  so  on  September  13  he 
crossed  the  river  and  advanced  to  attack  Gates's 
army,  which  was  occupying  a  strong  position  at 
Bemis  Heights,  between  Stillwater  and  Saratoga. 
It  was  a  desperate  move.  While  Burgoyne  was 
making  it,  Lincoln's  men  cut  his  communications 
with  Ticonderoga,  so  that  his  only  hope  lay  in  help 
from  below  ;  and  such  help  never  came.  In  this 
extremity  he  was  obliged  to  fight  on  ground 
chosen  by  the  Americans,  because  he  must  either 
fight  or  starve. 

Under  these  circumstances  Burgoyne  fought 
two  battles  with  consummate  gallantry.  The  first 
was  on  September  19,  the  second  on  Burgoyneis 
October  7.  In  each  battle  the  Amer- 
icans  were  led  by  Arnold  and  Morgan, 
and  Gates  deserves  no  credit  for  either.  l'7>' 
In  both  battles  Arnold  was  the  leading  spirit,  and 
in  the  second  he  was  severely  wounded  at  the  mo 
ment  of  victory.  In  the  first  battle  the  British 
were  simply  repulsed,  in  the  second  they  were 
totally  defeated.  This  settled  the  fate  of  Bur 
goyne,  and  on  the  17th  of  October  he  surrendered 
his  whole  army,  now  reduced  to  less  than  6000 
men,  as  prisoners  of  war.  Before  the  final  catas 
trophe  Sir  Henry  Clinton  had  sent  a  small  force 
up  the  river  to  relieve  him,  but  it  was  too  late. 
The  relieving  force  succeeded  in  capturing  some 
of  the  Highland  forts,  but  turned  back  on  hear 
ing  of  Biirgoyne's  surrender. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE    FRENCH    ALLIANCE. 

THIS  capture  of  a  British  army  made  more  ado 
in  Europe  than  anything  which  had  happened  for 
many  a  day.  It  was  compared  to  Leuktra  and 
the  Caudine  Fork.  The  immediate  effect  in  Eng- 
Lord  North  ^an(i  was  to  weaken  the  king  and  cause 
Lord  North  to  change  his  policy.  The 
tea-duty  and  the  obnoxious  acts  of  1774 
<eb.,i778.  were  repealed,  the  principles  of  colonial 
independence  of  Parliament  laid  down  by  Otis 
and  Henry  were  admitted,  and  commissioners  were 
sent  over  to  America  to  negotiate  terms  of  peace. 
It  was  hoped  that  by  such  ample  concessions  the 
Americans  might  be  so  appeased  as  to  be  willing 
to  adopt  some  arrangement  which  would  leave 
their  country  a  part  of  the  British  Empire.  As 
soon  as  the  French  government  saw  the  first  symp 
toms  of  such  a  change  of  policy  on  the  part  of 
Lord  North,  it  decided  to  enter  into  an  alliance 
with  the  United  States.  There  was  much  sym 
pathy  for  the  Americans  among  educated  people  of 
all  grades  of  society  in  France ;  but  the  action  of 
the  government  was  determined  purely  by  hatred 
of  England.  While  Great  Britain  and  her  col- 


THE  FRENCH  ALLIANCE.  145 

onies  were  weakening  each  other  by  war,  France 
had  up  to  this  moment  not  cared  to  interfere. 
But  if  there  was  the  slightest  chance  of  a  recon 
ciliation,  it  was  high  time  to  prevent  it ;  and  be 
sides,  the  American  cause  was  now  prosperous, 
and  something  might  be  made  of  it.  The  moment 
had  come  for  France  to  seek  revenge  for  the  dis 
asters  of  the  Seven  Years'  War ;  and  on  the  6th 
of  February,  1778,  her  treaty  of  alliance  with  the 
United  States  was  signed  at  Paris. 

At  the  news  of  this  there  was  an  outburst  of 
popular  excitement  in  England.  There  was  a 
strong  feeling  in  favour  of  peace  with  America 
and  war  with  France,  and  men  of  all  parties 
united  with  Lord  North  himself  in  demanding  that 
Lord  Chatham,  who  represented  such  a  policy, 
should  be  made  prime  minister.  It  was  rightly 
believed  that  he,  if  any  one,  could  both  conciliate 
America  and  humiliate  France.  There  was  only 
one  way  in  which  Chatham  could  have  broken  the 
new  alliance  which  Congress  had  so  long  been 
seeking.  The  faith  of  Congress  was  pledged  to 
France,  and  the  Americans  would  no  longer  hear 
of  any  terms  that  did  not  begin  with  the  acknowl 
edgment  of  their  full  independence.  To  break 
the  alliance,  it  would  have  been  necessary  to  con 
cede  the  independence  of  the  United  States.  The 
king  felt  that  if  he  were  now  obliged  to  call  Chat 
ham  to  the  head  of  affairs  and  allow  him  to  form 
a  strong  ministry,  it  would  be  the  end  of  his  cher- 


146  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

ished  schemes  for  breaking  down  cabinet  govern 
ment.     There  was   no  man  whom    George   III. 
hated  and  feared  so  much  as  Lord  Chatham.    Nev 
ertheless  the  pressure  was  so  great  that, 

Untimely  x  ° 

death  ot        but  for  Chatham's  untimely  death,  the 

Lord  Chat-  t 

nmi778ay  king  would  probably  have  been  obliged 
to  yield.  If  Chatham  had  lived  a  year 
longer,  the  war  might  have  ended  with  the  surren 
der  of  Burgoyne  instead  of  continuing  until  the 
surrender  of  Cornwallis.  As  it  was,  Lord  North 
consented,  against  his  own  better  judgment,  to 
remain  in  office  and  aid  the  king's  policy  as  far 
as  he  could.  The  commissioners  sent  to  America 
accomplished  nothing,  because  they  were  not  em 
powered  to  grant  independence ;  and  so  the  war 
went  on. 

There  was  a  great  change,  however,  in  the  man 
ner  in  which  the  war  was  conducted.  In  the  years 
1776  and  1777  the  British  had  pursued  a  definite 
plan  for  conquering  New  York  and  thus  severing 
the  connection  between  New  England  and  the 
southern  states.  During  the  remainder  of  the 
war  their  only  definite  plan  was  for  conquering 
the  southern  states.  Their  operations  at  the  north 
were  for  the  most  part  confined  to  burn- 
the  conduct  ing1  and  plundering"  expeditions  along 

of  the  war.  f .  ... 

the  coast  in  their  ships,  or  on  the  iron- 
tier  in  connection  with  Tories  and  Indians.  The 
war  thus  assumed  a  more  cruel  character.  This 
was  chiefly  due  to  the  influence  of  Lord  George 


THE  FRENCH  ALLIANCE.  147 

Germaine,  the  secretary  of  state  for  the  colonies. 
He  was  a  contemptible  creature,  weak  and  cruel. 
He  had  been  dismissed  from  the  army  in  1759  for 
cowardice  at  the  battle  of  Minden,  and  he  was  so 
generally  despised  that  when  in  1782  the  king 
was  obliged  to  turn  him  out  of  office  and  tried 
to  console  him  by  raising  him  to  the  peerage  as 
Viscount  Sackville,  the  House  of  Lords  protested 
against  the  admission  of  such  a  creature.  George 
III.  had  made  this  man  his  colonial  secretary  in 
the  autumn  of  1775,  and  he  had  much  to  do  with 
planning  the  campaigns  of  the  next  two  years. 
But  now  his  influence  in  the  cabinet  seems  to 
have  increased.  He  was  much  more  thoroughly 
in  sympathy  with  the  king  than  Lord  North,  who 
at  this  time  was  really  to  be  pitied.  Lord  North 
would  have  been  a  fine  man  but  for  his  weakness 
of  will.  He  was  now  keeping  up  the  war  in 
America  unwillingly,  and  was  obliged  to  sanction 
many  things  of  which  he  did  not  approve.  In 
later  years  he  bitterly  repented  this  weakness. 
Now  the  truculent  policy  of  Lord  George  Ger 
maine  began  to  show  itself  in  the  conduct  of  the 
war.  That  minister  took  no  pains  to  conceal  his 
willingness  to  employ  Indians,  to  burn  towns  and 
villages,  and  to  inflict  upon  the  American  people 
as  much  misery  as  possible,  in  the  hope  of  break 
ing  their  spirit  and  tiring  them  out. 

In  America  the  first  effect  of  Burgoyne's  sur 
render  was  to  strengthen  a  feeling  of  dissatisfac- 


148  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

tion  with  Washington,  which  had  grown  up  in 
some  quarters.  In  reality,  as  our  narrative  has 
shown,  Washington  had  as  much  to  do  with  the 
overthrow  of  Burgoyne  as  anybody  ;  for  if  it  had 
not  been  for  his  skilful  campaign  in  June,  1777, 
Howe  would  have  taken  Philadelphia  in  that 
month,  and  would  then  have  been  free  to  assist 
Burgoyne.  It  is  easy  enough  to  understand  such 
things  afterward,  but  people  never  can  see  them 
at  the  time  when  they  are  happening.  This  is  an 
excellent  illustration  of  what  was  said  at  the  be 
ginning  of  this  book,  that  when  people  are  down 
in  the  midst  of  events  they  cannot  see  the  wood 
because  of  the  trees,  and  it  is  only  when  they  have 
climbed  the  hill  of  history  and  look  back  over  the 
landscape  that  they  can  see  what  things  really 
meant.  At  the  end  of  the  year  1777  people  could 
only  see  that  Burgoyne  had  surrendered  to  Gates, 
while  Washington  had  lost  two  battles  and  the 
city  of  Philadelphia.  Accordingly  there  were 
many  who  supposed  that  Gates  must  be  a  better 
general  than  Washington,  and  in  the  army  there 
were  some  discontented  spirits  that  were  only 
too  glad  to  take  advantage  of  this  feeling.  One 
of  these  malcontents  was  an  Irish  adventurer, 
Thomas  Conway,  who  had  long  served  in  France 
and  came  over  here  in  time  to  take  part  in  the 
battles  of  Brandywine  and  Germantown.  He  had 
a  grudge  against  Washington,  as  Charles  Lee 
had.  He  thought  he  could  get  on  better  if  Wash- 


THE  FRENCH  ALLIANCE.  149 

mgton  were  out  of  the  way.  So  he  busied  himself 
in  organizing  a  kind  of  conspiracy  against  Wash 
ington,  which  came  to  be  known  as  the  The  Couway 
"  Conway  Cabal."  The  purpose  was  to  Cabal- 
put  forward  Gates  to  supersede  Washington,  as  he 
had  lately  superseded  the  noble  Schuyler.  Gates, 
of  course,  lent  himself  heartily  to  the  scheme ; 
such  intrigues  Were  what  he  was  made  for.  And 
there  were  some  of  our  noblest  men  who  were  dis 
satisfied  with  Washington,  because  they  were  ig 
norant  of  the  military  art,  and  could  not  under 
stand  his  wonderful  skill,  as  Frederick  the  Great 
did.  Among  these  were  John  and  Samuel  Adams, 
who  disapproved  of  "  Fabian  strategy."  Gates 
and  Conway  tried  to  work  upon  such  feelings. 
They  hoped  by  thwarting  and  insulting  Washing 
ton  to  wound  his  pride  and  force  him  to  resign. 
In  this  wretched  work  they  had  altogether  too 
much  help  from  Congress,  but  they  failed  igno- 
miniously  because  Gates's  lies  were  too  plainly 
discovered.  The  attempts  to  injure  Washington 
recoiled  upon  their  authors.  Never,  perhaps,  was 
Washington  so  grand  as  in  that  sorrowful  winter 
at  Valley  Forge. 

When  the  news  of  the  French  alliance  arrived, 
in  the  spring  of  1778,  there  was  a  general  feeling 
of  elation.  People  were  over-confident.  It  seemed 
as  if  the  British  might  be  driven  from  the  coun 
try  in  the  course  of  that  year.  Some  changes  oc 
curred  in  both  the  opposing  armies.  A  great  deal 


150  THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

of  fault  was  found  in  England  with  Howe  and 
Burgoyne.  The  latter  was  allowed  to  go  home  in 
the  spring,  and  took  his  seat  in  Parliament  while 
still  a  prisoner  on  parole.  He  was  henceforth 
friendly  to  the  Americans,  and  opposed  the  fur 
ther  prosecution  of  the  war.  Sir  William  Howe 
resigned  his  command  in  May  and  went  home  in 
order  to  defend  his  conduct.  Shortly  before  his 
appointment  to  the  chief  command  in  America, 
he  had  uttered  a  prophecy  somewhat  notable  as 
coming  from  one  who  was  about  to  occupy  such  a 
position.  In  a  speech  at  Nottingham  he  had  ex 
pressed  the  opinion  that  the  Americans  could  not 
be  subdued  by  any  army  that  Great  Britain  could 
raise  ! 

Howe  was  succeeded  in  the  chief  command  by 

Sir  Henry  Clinton.     His  brother,  Lord 

ersede 


persedeby    Howe,    remained    in   command    of    the 


fleet  until  the  autumn,  when  he  was  suc 
ceeded  by  Admiral  Byron.  During  the  winter 
the  American  army  had  received  a  very  important 
reinforcement  in  the  person  of  Baron  von  Steu- 
ben,  an  able  and  highly  educated  officer  who  had 
served  on  the  staff  of  Frederick  the  Great.  Steu- 
ben  was  appointed  inspector-general  and  taught 
the  soldiers  Prussian  discipline  and  tactics  until 
fche  efficiency  of  the  army  was  more  than  doubled. 
About  the  time  of  Sir  William  Howe's  departure, 
Charles  Lee  was  exchanged,  and  came  back  to  his 
old  place  as  senior  major-general  in  the  Conti- 


THE  FRENCH  ALLIANCE.  151 

nental  army.  Since  his  capture  there  had  been 
a  considerable  falling  off  in  his  reputation,  but 
nothing  was  known  of  his  treasonable  proceedings 
with  the  Howes.  Probably  no  one  in  the  British 
army  knew  anything  about  that  affair  except  the 
Howes  and  their  private  secretary  Sir  Henry 
Strachey.  Lee  saw  that  the  American  cause  was 
now  in  the  ascendant,  and  he  was  as  anxious  as 
ever  to  supplant  Washington. 

The  Americans  now  assumed  the  offensive. 
Count  d'Estaing  was  approaching  the 
coast  with  a  powerful  French  fleet, 
Shoidd  he  be  able  to  defeat  Lord  Howe 
and  get  control  of  the  Delaware  river, 
the  British  army  in  Philadelphia  would  28)  1777- 
be  in  danger  of  capture.  Accordingly  on  the 
18th  of  June  that  city  was  evacuated  by  Sir 
Henry  Clinton  and  occupied  by  Washington.  As 
there  were  not  enough  transports  to  take  the 
British  army  around  to  New  York  by  sea,  it  was 
necessary  to  take  the  more  hazardous  course  of 
marching  across  New  Jersey.  Washington  pur 
sued  the  enemy  closely,  with  the  view  of  forcing 
him  to  battle  in  an  unfavourable  situation  and 
dealing  him  a  fatal  blow.  There  was  some  hope 
of  effecting  this,  as  the  two  armies  were  now  about 
equal  in  size  — 15,000  in  each  —  and  the  Ameri 
cans  were  in  excellent  training.  The  enemy  were 
overtaken  at  Monmouth  Court  House  on  the 
morning  of  June  28,  but  the  attack  was  unfor- 


152  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

tunately  entrusted  to  Lee,  who  disobeyed  orders 
and  made  an  unnecessary  and  shameful  retreat. 
Washington  arrived  on  the  scene  in  time  to  turn 
defeat  into  victory.  The  British  were  driven 
from  the  field,  but  Lee's  misconduct  had  broken 
the  force  of  the  blow  which  Washington  had 
aimed  at  them.  Lee  was  tried  by  court-martial 
and  at  first  suspended  from  command,  then  ex 
pelled  from  the  army.  It  was  the  end  of  his 
public  career.  Pie  died  in  October,  1782. 

After  the  battle  of  Monmouth  the  British  con 
tinued  their  march  to  New  York,  and  Washington 
moved  his  army  to  White  Plains.  Count  d'Es- 
taing  arrived  at  Sandy  Hook  in  July  with  a  much 
larger  fleet  than  the  British  had  in  the  harbour, 
and  a  land  force  of  4000  men.  It  now  seemed  as 
if  Clinton's  army  might  be  cooped  up  and  com 
pelled  to  surrender,  but  on  examination  it  ap 
peared  that  the  largest  French  ships  drew  too 
much  water  to  venture  to  cross  the  bar.  All  hope 
of  capturing  New  York  was  accordingly  for  the 
present  abandoned. 

The  enemy,  however,  had  another  considerable 
force  near  at  hand,  besides  Clinton's.  Since 
December,  1776,  they  had  occupied  the  island 
which  gives  its  name  to  the  state  of  Rhode  Island. 
Its  position  was  safe  and  convenient.  It  enabled 
them,  if  they  should  see  fit,  to  threaten  Boston  on 
the  one  hand  and  the  coast  of  Connecticut  on  the 
other,  and  thus  to  make  diversions  in  aid  of  Sir 


THE  FRENCH  ALLIANCE.  153 

Henry  Clinton.     The  force  on  Rhode  Island  had 
been  increased  to  6000  men,  under  command  of 
Sir  Robert  Pigott.     The  Americans  believed  that 
the  capture  of  so  large  a  force,  could 
it  be  effected,  would  so  discourage  the  Newport, 

Aug.  1777. 

British  as  to  bring  the  war  to  an  end  ; 
and  in  this  belief  they  were  very  likely  right.  The 
French  fleet  accordingly  proceeded  to  Newport ; 
to  the  4000  French  infantry  Washing-ton  added 
1500  of  the  best-  of  his  Continentals  ;  levies  of 
New  England  yeomanry  raised  the  total  strength 
to  13,000 ;  and  the  general  command  of  the 
American  troops  was  given  to  Sullivan. 

The  expedition  was  poorly  managed,  and  failed 
completely.  There  was  some,  delay  in  starting. 
During  the  first  week  of  August  the  Americans 
landed  upon  the  island  and  occupied  Butt's  Hill. 
The  French  had  begun  to  land  on  Conanicut 
when  they  learned  that  Lord  Howe  was  approach 
ing  with  a  powerful  fleet.  The  count  then  reem- 
barked  his  men  and  stood  out  to  sea,  manosuvring 
for  a  favourable  position  for  battle.  Before  the 
fight  had  begun,  a  terrible  stoj*m  scattered  both 
fleets  and  damaged  them  severely.  When  D'Es- 
taing  had  got  his  ships  together  again,  which  was 
not  till  the  20th  of  August,  he  insisted  upon  go 
ing  to  Boston  for  repairs,  and  took  his  infantry 
with  him.  This  vexed  Sullivan  and  disgusted 
the  yeomanry,  who  forthwith  dispersed  and  went 
home  to  look  after  their  crops.  General  Pigott 


154  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

then  tried  the  offensive,  and  attacked  Sullivan  in 
his  strong  position  on  Butt's  Hill,  on  the  29th  of 
August.  The  British  were  defeated,  but  the  next 
day  Sullivan  learned  that  Clinton  was  coming  with 
heavy  reinforcements,  and  so  he  was  obliged  to 
abandon  the  enterprise  and  lose  no  time  in  get 
ting  his  own  troops  into  a  safe  position  on  the 
mainland.  In  November  the  French  fleet  sailed 
for  the  West  Indies,  and  Clinton  was  obliged  to 
send  5000  men  from  New  York  to  the  same  quar 
ter  of  the  world. 

In  the  years  1778  and  1779  the  warfare  on  the 
border  assumed  formidable  proportions.  The 
Tories  of  central  New  York,  under  the  Johnsons 
and  Butlers,  together  with  Brant  and  his  Mo 
hawks,  made  their  headquarters  at  Fort  Niagara, 
from  which  they  struck  frequent  and  terrible 
blows  at  the  exposed  settlements  on  the  frontier. 
Early  in  July,  1778,  a  force  of  1200  men,  under 
Wyoming  John  Butler,  spread  death  and  desola- 
vSiey^y  tion  through  the  beautiful  valley  of 
-NOV.,  1778.  Wyoming  in  Pennsylvania.  On  the 
10th  of  November,  Brant  and  Walter  Butler  de 
stroyed  the  village  of  Cherry  Valley  in  New  York, 
and  massacred  the  inhabitants.  Many  other 
dreadful  things  were  done  in  the  course  of  this 
year  ;  but  the  affairs  of  Wyoming  and  Cherry 
Valley  made  a  deeper  impression  than  all  the  rest. 
During  the  following  spring  Washington  organ 
ized  an  expedition  of  5000  men,  and  sent  it,  under 


THE  FRENCH  ALLIANCE.  155 

Sullivan,  to  lay  waste  the  Iroquois  country  and 
capture  the  nest  of  Tory  malefactors  at  Fort  Ni 
agara.  While  they  were  slowly  advancing  through 
the  wilderness,  Brant  sacked  the  town  of  Minisink 
and  destroyed  a  force  of  militia  sent  against  him. 
But  on  the  29th  of  August  a  battle  was  fought  on 
the  site  of  the  present  town  of  Elmira,  in  which 
the  Tories  and  Indians  were  defeated  with  great 
slaughter.  The  American  army  then  marched 
through  the  country  of  the  Cayugas  and  Senecas, 
and  laid  it  waste.  More  than  forty  Indian  vil 
lages  were  burned  and  all  the  corn  was  destroyed, 
so  that  the  approach  of  winter  brought  famine 
and  pestilence.  Sullivan  was  not  able  to  get  be 
yond  the  Genesee  river  for  want  of  supplies,  and 
so  Fort  Niagara  escaped.  The  Iroquois  league 
had  received  a  blow  from  which  it  never  recov 
ered,  though  for  two  years  more  their  tomahawks 
were  busy  on  the  frontier. 

At  intervals  during  the  Revolution  there  was 
more  or  less  Indian  warfare  all  along  the  border. 
Settlers  were  making  their  way  into  Kentucky 
and  Tennessee.  Feuds  with  these  encroaching 
immigrants  led  the  powerful  tribe  of  Cherokees  to 
take  part  with  the  British,  and  they  made  trouble 
enough  until  they  were  crushed  by  John  Sevier, 
the  "lion  of  the  border."  In  1778  Colonel  Hamil 
ton,  the  British  commander  at  Detroit,  attempted 
to  stir  up  all  the  western  tribes  to  a  concerted  at 
tack  upon  the  frontier.  When  the  news  of  this 


156  THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

reached  Virginia,  an  expedition  was  sent  out  un- 
conquestof  ^er  George  Rogers  Clark,  a  youth  of 
weestne°rnth"  twenty-four  years,  to  carry  the  war  into 
i778$9y'  *he  enemy's  country.  In  an  extremely 
interesting  and  romantic  series  of  move 
ments,  Clark  took  the  posts  of  Kaskaskia  and 
Cahokia,  on  the  Mississippi  river,  defeated  and 
captured  Colonel  Hamilton  at  Vincennes,  on  the 
Wabash,  and  ended  by  conquering  the  whole 
northwestern  territory  for  the  state  of  Virginia. 

The  year  1779  saw  very  little  fighting  in  the 
northern  states  between  the  regular  armies.  The 
British  confined  themselves  chiefly  to  marauding 
expeditions  along  the  coast,  from  Martha's  Vine 
yard  down  to  the  James  river.  These  incursions 
were  marked  by  cruelties  unknown  in  the  earlier 
part  of  the  war.  Their  chief  purpose  would  seem 
to  have  been  to  carry  out  Lord  George  Ger- 
maine's  idea  of  harassing  the  Americans  as  vexa- 
tiously  as  possible.  But  in  Connecticut,  which 
perhaps  suffered  the  worst,  there  was  a  military 
purpose.  In  July,  1779,  an  attack  was  made  upon 
New  Haven,  and  the  towns  of  Fairfield  and  Nor- 
walk  were  burned.  The  object  was  to  induce 
Washington  to  weaken  his  force  on  the  Hudson 
river  by  sending  away  troops  to  protect  the  Con 
necticut  towns.  Clinton  now  held  the  river  as 
far  up  as  Stony  Point,  and  he  hoped  by  this  diver 
sion  to  prepare  for-  an  attack  upon  Washington 
which,  if  successful,  might  end  in  the  fall  of  West 


THE  FRENCH  ALLIANCE.  157 

Point.  If  the  British  could  get  possession  of 
West  Point,  it  would  go  far  toward  retrieving  the 
disaster  which  had  befallen  them  at  Saratoga. 
Washington's  retort  was  characteristic  of  him. 
He  did,  as  always,  what  the  enemy  did  not  expect. 
He  called  Anthony  Wayne  and  asked  stonningof 
him  if  he  thought  he  could  carry  Stony  ^5!°iut' 
Point  by  storm.  Wayne  replied  that  1<<J' 
he  could  storm  a  very  much  hotter  place  than  any 
known  in  terrestrial  geography,  if  Washington 
would  plan  the  attack.  Plan  and  performance 
were  equally  good.  At  midnight  of  July  15  the 
fort  was  surprised  and  carried  in  a  superb  assault 
with  bayonets,  without  the  firing  of  a  gun  on  the 
American  side.  It  was  one  of  the  most  brilliant 
assaults  in  all  military  history.  It  instantly  re 
lieved  Connecticut,  but  Washington  did  not  think 
it  prudent  to  retain  the  fortress.  The  works 
were  all  destroyed,  and  the  garrison,  with  the 
cannon  and  stores,  withdrawn.  The  American 
army  was  as  much  as  possible  concentrated  about 
West  Point.  In  the  general  situation  of  affairs 
on  the  Hudson  there  was  but  little  change  for  the 
next  two  years. 

It  may  seem  strange  that  so  little  was  done  in 
all  this  time.  But,  in  fact,  both  England  and  the 
United  States  were  getting  exhausted,  so  far  as 
the  ability  to  carry  on  war  was  concerned. 

As  regards  England,  the  action  of  France  had 
seriously  complicated  the  situation.  England  had 


158  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

now  to  protect  her  colonies  and  dependencies  on 
the  Mediterranean,  in  Africa,  in  Hindustan,  and 
HOW  England  in  the  West  Indies.  In  1779  Spain 

was  weak-  . 

ened  and         declared  war  against  her,  in  the  hope  of 

hampered,  .     .  r 

1778-si.  regaining  Gibraltar  and  •  the  Floridas. 
For  three  years  Gibraltar  was  besieged  by  the 
allied  French  and  Spanish  forces.  A  Spanish 
fleet  laid  siege  to  Pensacola.  France  strove  to 
regain  the  places  which  England  had  formerly 
won  from  her  in  Senegambia.  War  broke  out  in 
India  with  the  Mahrattas,  and  with  Hyder  Ali  of 
Mysore,  and  it  required  all  the  genius  of  Warren 
Hastings  to  save  England's  empire  in  Asia.  We 
have  already  seen  how  Clinton,  in  the  autumn  of 
1778,  was  obliged  to  weaken  his  force  in  New 
York  by  sending  5,000  men  to  the  West  Indies. 
Before  the  end  of  1779  there  were  314,000  British 
troops  on  duty  in  various  parts  of  the  world,  but 
not  enough  could  be  spared  for  service  in  New 
York  to  defeat  Washington's  little  army  of  15,000. 
We  thus  begin  to  realize  what  a  great  event  was 
the  surrender  of  Burgoyne.  The  loss  of  6,000 
men  by  England  was  not  in  itself  irreparable ; 
but  in  leading  to  the  intervention  of  France  it 
was  like  the  touching  of  a  spring  or  the  drawing 
of  a  bolt  which  sets  in  motion  a  vast  system  of 
machinery. 

Under  these  circumstances  George  III.  tried  to 
form  an  alliance  with  Russia,  and  offered  the 
island  of  Minorca  as  an  inducement.  Russia  de- 


THE  FRENCH  ALLIANCE.  159 

clined  the  offer,  and  such  action  as  she  took  was 
hostile  to  England.  It  had  formerly  been  held 
that  the  merchant  ships  of  neutral  nations,  em 
ployed  in  trade  with  nations  at  war,  might  law 
fully  be  overhauled  and  searched  by  war  ships  of 
either  of  the  belligerent  nations,  and  their  goods 
confiscated.  England  still  held  this  doctrine  and 
acted  upon  it.  But  during  the  eighteenth  century 
her  maritime  power  had  increased  to  such  an  ex 
tent  that  she  could  damage  other  nations  in  this 
way  much  more  than  they  could  damage  her. 
Other  nations  accordingly  began  to  maintain  that 
goods  carried  in  neutral  ships  ought  to  be  free 
from  seizure.  Early  in  1780  Denmark,  Sweden, 
and  Russia  entered  into  an  agreement  known  as 
the  Armed  Neutrality,  by  which  they  pledged 
themselves  to  unite  in  retaliating  upon  England 
whenever  any  of  her  cruisers  should  molest  any 
of  their  ships.  This  league  was  a  new  source  of 
danger  to  England,  because  it  entailed  the  risk  of 
war  with  Russia. 

During  these  years  several  bold  American  cruis 
ers  had  made  the  stars  and  stripes  a  familiar  sight 
in  European  waters.     The  most  famous  of  these 
cruisers,  Paul  Jones,  made  his  name  a  Pailljone8t 
terror    upon    the    coasts   of    England,   17T9' 
burned  the   ships  in  a  port  of  Cumberland,  sailed 
into  the  Frith  of  Forth  and  threatened  Edinburgh, 
and  finally  captured  two   British  war  vessels  off 
Flamborough  Head,  in  one  of  the  most  desperate 
sea-fiihts  on  record. 


160          THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

Paul  Jones  was  a  regularly  commissioned  cap 
tain  in  the  American  navy,  but  because  the  British 
did  not  recognize  Congress  as  a  legal  body  they 
called  him  a  pirate.  When  he  took  his  prizes 
into  a  port  in  Holland,  they  requested  the  Dutch 
government  to  surrender  him  into  their  hands,  as 
if  he  were  a  mere  criminal  to  be  tried  at  the  Old 
Bailey.  But  the  Dutch  let  him  stay  in  port  ten 
weeks  and  then  depart  in  peace.  This  caused 
much  irritation,  and  as  there  was  also  perpetual 
quarrelling  over  the  plunder  of  Dutch  ships  by 
British  cruisers,  the  two  nations  went  &o  war  in 
December,  1780.  One  of  England's  reasons  for 
entering  into  this  war  was  the  desire  to  capture 
tne  liti:le  Dutch  island  of  St.  Eustatius 


st.  Eustatius, 

Feb.,  t78i.       jn  ^  West  Indies.    An  immense  trade 

was  carried  on  there  between  Holland  and  the 
United  States,  and  it  was  believed  that  the  stop 
page  of  this  trade  would  be  a  staggering  blow  to 
the  Americans.  It  was  captured  in  February, 
1781,  by  Admiral  Rodney,  private  property  was 
seized  to  the  amount  of  more  than  twenty  mil 
lion  dollars,  and  the  inhabitants  were  treated  with 
shameful  brutality. 

As  England  was  thus  fighting  single-handed 
against  France,  Spain,  Holland,  and  the  United 
States,  while  the  attitude  of  all  the  neutral  powers 
was  unfriendly,  we  can  find  no  difficulty  in  un 
derstanding  the  weakness  of  her  military  oper 
ations  in  some  quarters.  The  United  States,  on 


THE  FRENCH  ALLIANCE.  161 

the  other  hand,  found  it  hard  to  carry  on  the  war 
for  very  different  reasons.     In  the  first 
place  the  country  was  really  weak.    The 


military  strength  of  the  American  Union  S  and  " 
in  1780  was  inferior  to   that   of   Hoi-  TIM  *••*«( 


unon. 


i  i  T  r 

land,  and  about  on  a  level  with  that  ot 
Denmark  or  Portugal.  But  furthermore  the  want 
of  union  made  it  hard  to  bring  out  such  strength 
as  there  was.  In  the  autumn  of  1777  the  Articles 
of  Confederation  were  submitted  to  the  several 
states  for  adoption  ;  but  the  spring  of  1781  had 
arrived  before  all  the  thirteen  states  had  ratified 
them.  These  articles  left  the  Continental  Con 
gress  just  what  it  was  before,  a  mere  advisory 
body,  without  power  to  enlist  soldiers  or  levy 
taxes,  without  federal  courts  or  federal  officials, 
and  with  no  executive  head  to  the  government. 
As  we  have  already  seen,  the  only  way  in  which 
Congress  could  get  money  from  the  people  was  by 
requisitions  upon  the  states,  by  asking  the  state- 
governments  for  it.  This  was  always  a  very  slow 
way  to  get  money,  and  now  the  states  were  unusu 
ally  poor.  There  was  very  little  accumulated  cap 
ital.  Farming,  fishing,  ship-building,  and  foreign 
trade  were  the  chief  occupations.  Farms  and 
plantations  suffered  considerably  from  the  absence 
of  their  owners  in  the  army,  and  many  were  kept 
from  enlisting,  because  it  was  out  of  the  question 
to  go  and  leave  their  families  to  starve.  As  for 
ship-building,  fishing,  and  foreign  trade,  these 


162  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

occupations  were  almost  annihilated  by  British 
cruisers.  No  doubt  the  heaviest  blows  that  we 
received  were  thus  dealt  us  on  the  water. 

The  people  were  so  poor  that  the  states  found 
it  hard  to  collect  enough  revenue  for  their  own 
purposes,  and  most  of  them  had  a  way  of  issuing 
paper  money  of  their  own,  which  made  things 
still  worse.  Under  such  circumstances  they  had 
very  little  money  to  give  to  Congress.  It  was 
necessary  to  borrow  of  France,  or  Spain,  or  Hol 
land,  and  by  the  time  these  nations  were  all  at 
war,  that  became  very  difficult.  From  the  begin 
ning  of  the  war  Congress  had  issued  paper  notes, 
and  in  1778  the  depreciation  in  their  value  was 
already  alarming.  But  as  soon  as  the  exultation 
over  Burgoyne's  surrender  had  subsided,  as  soon 
as  the  hope  of  speedily  driving  out  the  British 
had  been  disappointed,  people  soon  lost  all  con 
fidence  in  the  power  of  Congress  to  pay  its  notes, 
an^  m  1779  their  value  began  falling 
-  with  frightful  rapidity.  In  1780  they 
became  worthless.  It  took  $150  in  Con 
tinental  currency  to  buy  a  bushel  of 
corn,  and  an  ordinary  suit  of  clothes  cost  $2000. 
Then  people  refused  to  take  it,  and  resorted  to 
barter,  taking  their  pay  in  sheep  or  ploughs,  in 
jugs  of  rum  or  kegs  of  salt  pork,  or  whatever  they 
could  get.  It  thus  became  almost  impossible  either 
to  pay  soldiers,  or  to  clothe  and  feed  them  prop 
erly  and  supply  them  with  powder  and  ball.  We 


THE  FRENCH  ALLIANCE.  '  163 

thus  see  why  the  Americans,  as  well  as  the  British, 
conducted  the  war  so  languidly  that  for  two  years 
after  the  storming  of  Stony  Point  their  main 
armies  sat  and  faced  each  other  by  the  Hudson 
river,  without  any  movements  of  importance. 

In  one  quarter,  however,  the  British  began  to 
make  rapid  progress.  They  possessed  the  Flori- 
das,  having  got  them  from  Spain  by  the  treaty  of 
1763.  Next  them  lay  Georgia,  the  weakest  of  the 
thirteen  states,  and  then  came  the  Carolinas,  with 
a  strong  Tory  element  in  the  population.  For 
such  reasons,  after  the  great  invasion  of  New 
York  had  failed,  the  British  tried  the  plan  of 
starting  at  the  southern  extremity  of  the  Union 
and  lopping  off  one  state  after  another.  In  the 
autumn  of  1778  General  Prevost  advanced  from 
East  Florida,  and  in  a  brief  campaign  succeeded 
in  capturing  Savannah,  Sunbury,  and  Augusta. 
General  Lincoln,  who  had  won  distinction  in  the 
Saratoga  campaign,  was  appointed  to  command 
the  American  forces  in  the  South.  He  sent  Genera) 
Ashe,  with  1500  men,  to  threaten  Au-  The  British 
gusta.  At  Ashe's  approach,  the  British  S£l, 
abandoned  the  town  and  retreated  to-  1779' 
ward  Savannah.  Ashe  pursued  too  closely  and 
at  Briar  Creek,  March  3,  1779,  the  enemy  turned 
upon  him  and  routed  him.  The  Americans  lost 
nearly  1000  men  killed,  wounded,  and  captured, 
besides  their  cannon  and  small  arms ;  and  this 
victory  cost  the  British  only  16  men  killed  and 


164  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

wounded.  Augusta  was  reoccupied,  the  royal 
governor,  Sir  James  Wright,  was  reinstated  in 
office,  and  the  machinery  of  government  which 
had  been  in  operation  previous  to  1776  was  re 
stored.  Lincoln  now  advanced  upon  Augusta, 
but  Prevost  foiled  him  by  returning  the  offensive 
and  marching  upon  Charleston.  In  order  to  pro 
tect  that  city,  Lincoln  was  obliged  to  retrace  his 
steps.  It  was  now  the  middle  of  May,  and  little 
more  was  done  till  September,  when  D'Estaing 
returned  from  the  West  Indies.  On  the  23d  Sa 
vannah  was  invested  by  the  combined  forces  of 
Lincoln  and  D'Estaing,  and  the  siege  was  vigor 
ously  carried  on  for  a  fortnight.  Then  the  French 
admiral  grew  impatient.  On  the  9th  of  October 
a  fierce  assault  was  made,  in  which  the  allies  were 
defeated  with  the  loss  of  1000  men,  including  the 
gallant  Pulaski.  The  French  fleet  then  departed, 
and  the  British  coidd  look  upon  Georgia  as  re 
covered. 

It  was  South  Carolina's  turn  next.  Washing- 
ton  was  obliged  to  weaken  his  own  force  by  send 
ing  most  of  the  southern  troops  to  Lincoln's  as 
sistance.  Sir  Henry  Clinton  then  withdrew  the 
garrisons  from  his  advanced  posts  on  the  Hudson, 
and  also  from  Rhode  Island,  and  was  thus  able 
to  leave  an  adequate  force  in  New  York,  while  he 
himself  set  sail  for  Savannah,  December  26,  1779, 
with  a  considerable  army.  After  the  British 
forces  were  united  in  Georgia,  they  amounted  to 


THE  FRENCH   ALLIANCE.  165 

more  than  13,000  men,  against  whom  Lincoln 
could  bring  but  7000.  The  fate  of  the  American 
army  shows  us  what  would  probably  have  hap 
pened  in  New  York  in  177G  if  an  ordinary  gen 
eral  instead  of  Washington  had  been  in  command. 
Lincoln  allowed  himself  to  be  cooped  up 

~  .  .  .  And  capture 

in  Charleston,  and   alter  a  siege  ot  two   Charleston, 

i  with  Lin- 

lllOntllS  was   obliged    to    surrender   the   coin's  army. 

May  12,  1780. 

city  and  his  whole  army  on  the  12th  of 
May,  1780.  This  was  the  most  serious  disaster 
the  Americans  had  suffered  since  the  loss  of  Fort 
Washington.  The  dashing  cavalry  leader,  Tarle- 
ton,  soon  cut  to  pieces  whatever  remnants  of  their 
army  were  left  in  South  Carolina.  Sir  Henry 
Clinton  returned  in  June  to  New  York,  leaving 
Lord  Cornwallis  with  5000  men  to  carry  on  the 
work.  The  Tories,  thus  supported,  got  the  upper- 
hand  in  the  interior  of  the  state,  which  suffered 
from  all  the  horrors  of  civil  war.  The  American 
cause  was  sustained  only  by  partisan  leaders,  of 
whom  the  most  famous  were  Francis  Marion  and 
Thomas  Sumter. 

When  the  news  of  Lincoln's  surrender  reached 
the  North,  the  emergency  was  felt  to  be  desperate. 
A  fresh  army  was  raised,  consisting  of  about  2000 
superbly  trained  veterans  of  the  Maryland  and 
Delaware  lines,  under  the  Baron  de  Kalb,  and 
such  militia  as  could  be  raised  in  Virginia  and 
North  Carolina.  The  chief  command  was  given 
to  Gates,  whose  conduct  from  the  start  was  a  se- 


166  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

ries  of  blunders.     The  most  important   strategic 
point  in  South  Carolina  was  Camden,  at 

Battle  of 


the  intersection  of  the  principal  roads 
from  the  coast  to  the  mountains  and 
from  north  to  south.  In  marching  upon  this 
point  Gates  was  met  by  Lord  Cornwallis  on  the 
16th  of  August  and  utterly  routed.  Kalb  was 
mortally  wounded  at  the  head  of  the  Maryland 
troops,  who  held  their  ground  nobly  till  over 
whelmed  by  numbers;  the  Delaware  men  were 
cut  to  pieces  ;  the  militia  were  swept  away  in 
flight,  and  Gates  with  them.  His  northern  lau 
rels,  as  it  was  said,  had  changed  into  southern 
willows  ;  and  for  the  second  time  within  three 
months  an  American  army  at  the  South  had  been 
annihilated. 

This  was,  on  the  whole,  the  darkest  moment  of 
the  war.  For  a  moment  in  July  there  had  been 
a  glimmer  of  hopefulness  when  the  Count  de 
Rochambeau  arrived  with  6000  men  who  were 
landed  on  Rhode  Island.  The  British  fleet,  how 
ever,  soon  came  and  blockaded  them  there,  and 
again  the  hearts  of  the  people  were  sickened  with 
hope  deferred.  It  seemed  as  if  Lord  George  Ger- 
maine's  policy  of  "  tiring  the  Americans  out  " 
might  be  going  to  succeed  after  all.  When  the 
value  of  the  Continental  paper  money  now  fell  to 
zero,  it  was  a  fair  indication  that  the  people  had 
pretty  much  lost  all  faith  in  Congress.  In  the 
army  the  cases  of  desertion  to  the  British  lines 
averaged  about  a  hundred  por  month. 


THE  FRENCH  ALLIANCE.  167 

This  was  a  time  when  a  man  of  bold  and  im 
pulsive  temperament,  prone  to  cherish  romantic 
schemes,  smarting  under  an  accumulation  of  in 
juries,  and  weak  in  moral  principle,  might  easily 
take  it  into  his  head  that  the  American  cause  was 
lost,  and  that  he  had  better  carve  out  a  new  ca 
reer  for  himself,  while  wreaking  vengeance  on  his 
enemies.  Such  seems  to  have  been  the  case  with 
Benedict  Arnold.  He  had  a  great  and  Benedict  Ar_ 
well-earned  reputation  for  skill  and  ^fjuiy-"*" 
bravery.  His  military  services  up  to  ^P1-'1780- 
the  time  of  Burgoyne's  surrender  had  been  of 
priceless  value,  and  he  had  always  stood  high  in 
Washington's  favour.  But  he  had  a  genius  for 
getting  into  quarrels,  and  there  seem  always  to 
have  been  people  who  doubted  his  moral  sound 
ness.  At  the  same  time  he  had  good  reason  to 
complain  of  the  treatment  which  he  received  from 
Congress.  The  party  hostile  to  Washington 
sometimes  liked  to  strike  at  him  in  the  persons  of 
his  favourite  generals,  and  such  admirable  men 
as  Greene  and  Morgan  had  to  bear  the  brunt  of 
this  ill  feeling.  Early  in  1777  five  brigadier  gen 
erals  junior  to  Arnold  in  rank  and  vastly  inferior 
to  him  in  ability  and  reputation  had  been  pro 
moted  over  him  to  the  grade  of  major-general. 
On  this  occasion  he  had  shown  an  excellent  spirit, 
and  when  sent  by  Washington  to  the  aid  of 
Schuyler,  he  had  signified  his  willingness  to  serve 
under  St.  Clair  and  Lincoln,  two  of  the  juniors 


168  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

who  had  been  raised  above  him.  Arnold  was  a 
warm  friend  to  Schuyler,  and  perhaps  did  not 
take  enough  pains  to  conceal  his  poor  opinion  of 
Gates.  Other  officers  in  the  northern  army  let  it 
plainly  be  seen  that  they  placed  more  confidence  in 
Arnold  than  in  Gates,  and  the  result  was  a  bitter 
quarrel  between  the  two  generals,  echoes  of  which 
were  probably  afterwards  heard  in  Congress. 

If  Arnold's  wound  on  the  field  of  Saratoga 
had  been  a  mortal  wound,  he  would  have  been 
ranked,  among  the  military  heroes  of  the  Revolu 
tion,  next  to  Washington  and  Greene.  Perhaps, 
however,  in  a  far  worse  sense  than  is  commonly 
conveyed  by  the  term,  it  proved  to  be  his  death- 
wound,  for  it  led  to  his  being  placed  in  command 
of  Philadelphia.  He  was  assigned  to  that  position 
because  his  wounded  leg  made  him  unfit  for  active 
service.  Congress  had  restored  him  to  his  rela 
tive  rank,  but  now  he  soon  got  into  trouble  with 
the  state  government  of  Pennsylvania.  It  is  not 
easy  to  determine  how  much  ground  there  may 
have  been  for  the  charges  brought  against  him 
early  in  1779  by  the  state  government.  One  of 
them  concerned  his  personal  honesty,  the  others 
were  so  trivial  in  character  as  to  make  the  whole 
affair  look  somewhat  like  a  case  of  persecution. 
They  were  twice  investigated,  once  by  a  commit 
tee  of  Congress  and  once  by  a  court-martial.  On 
the  serious  charge,  which  affected  his  pecuniary 
integrity,  he  was  acquitted  ;  on  two  of  the  trivial 


THE  FRENCH  ALLIANCE.  169 

charges,  of  imprudence  in  the  use  of  some  public 
wagons,  and  of  carelessness  in  granting  a  pass  for 
a  ship,  he  was  convicted  and  sentenced  to  be  rep 
rimanded.  The  language  in  which  Washington 
couched  the  reprimand  showed  his  feeling  that 
Arnold  was  too  harshly  dealt  with. 

If  the  matter  had  stopped  here,  posterity  would 
probably  have  shared  Washington's  feeling.  But 
the  government  of  Pennsylvania  must  have  had 
stronger  grounds  for  distrust  of  Arnold  than  it 
was  able  to  put  into  the  form  of  definite  charges. 
Soon  after  his  arrival  in  Philadelphia  he  fell  in 
love  with  a  beautiful  Tory  lady,  to  whom  he  was 
presently  married.  He  was  thus  thrown  much 
into  the  society  of  Tories  and  was  no  doubt  influ 
enced  by  their  views.  He  had  for  some  time  con 
sidered  himself  ill-treated,  and  at  first  thought  of 
leaving  the  service  and  settling  upon  a  grant  of 
land  in  western  New  York.  Then,  as  the  charges 
against  him  were  pressed  and  his  anger  increased, 
he  seems  to  have  dallied  with  the  notion  of  going 
over  to  the  British.  At  length  in  the  early  sum 
mer  of  1780,  after  the  reprimand,  his  treasonable 
purpose  seems  to  have  taken  definite  shape.  As 
General  Monk  in  1660  decided  that  the  only  way 
to  restore  peace  in  England  was  to  desert  the 
cause  of  the  Commonwealth  and  bring  back 
Charles  II.,  so  Arnold  seems  now  to  have  thought 
that  the  cause  of  American  independence  was 
ruined,  and  that  the  best  prospect  for  a  career  for 


170  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

himself  lay  in  deserting  it  and  helping  to  bring 
back  the  rule  of  George  III.  In  this  period  of 
general  depression,  when  even  the  unconquerable 
Washington  said  "  I  have  almost  ceased  to  hope," 
one  staggering  blow  would  be  very  likely  to  end 
the  struggle.  There  could  be  no  heavier  blow 
than  the  loss  of  the  Hudson  river,  and  with  base 
ness  almost  incredible  Arnold  asked  for  the  com 
mand  of  West  Point,  with  the  intention  of  betray 
ing  it  into  the  hands  of  Sir  Henry  Clinton.  The 
depth  of  his  villainy  on  this  occasion  makes  it 
probable  that  there  were  good  grounds  for  the  sus 
picions  with  which  some  people  had  for  a  long  time 
regarded  him,  although  Washington,  by  putting 
him  in  command  of  the  most  important  position 
in  the  country,  showed  that  his  own  confidence  in 
him  was  unabated.  The  successful  execution  of 
the  plot  seemed  to  call  for  a  personal  interview 
between  Arnold  and  Clinton's  adjutant-general, 
Major  John  Andre,  who  was  entrusted  with  the 
negotiation.  Such  a  secret  interview  was  ex 
tremely  difficult  to  bring  about,  but  it  was  effected 
on  the  21st  of  September,  1780.  After  a  mar 
vellous  chapter  of  accidents,  Andre  was  captured 
just  before  reaching  the  British  lines.  But  for 
his  hasty  and  quite  unnecessary  confession  that 
he  was  a  British  officer,  which  led  to  his  being 
searched,  the  plot  would  in  all  probability  have 
been  successful.  The  papers  found  on  his  per 
son,  which  left  no  room  for  doubt  as  to  the  nature 


THE  FRENCH  ALLIANCE.  171 

of  the  black  scheme,  were  sent  to  Washington  ; 
the  principal  traitor,  forewarned  just  in  the  nick 
of  time,  escaped  to  the  British  at  New  York  ;  and 
Major  Andre  was  condemned  as  a  spy  and  hanged 
on  the  2d  of  October. 

Only  five  days  after  the  execution  of  Andre  an 
event  occurred  at  the  South  which  greatly  relieved 
the  prevailing  gloom  of  the  situation.  It  was  the 
first  of  a  series  of  victories  which  were  soon  to 
show  that  the  darkness  of  1780  was  the  darkness 
that  comes  before  dawn.  After  his  victory  at 
Camdeii,  Lord  Cornwallis  found  it  necessary  to 
give  his  army  some  rest  from  the  intense  August 
heat.  In  September  he  advanced  into  North 
Carolina,  boasting  that  he  would  soon  conquer  all 
the  states  south  of  the  Susquehanna  river.  But 
his  line  of  march  now  lay  far  inland,  and  the 
British  armies  were  never  able  to  accomplish 
much  except  in  the  neighbourhood  of  their  ships, 
where  they  could  be  reasonably  sure  of  supplies. 
In  traversing  Mecklenburg  county  Cornwallis 
soon  found  himself  in  a  very  hostile  and  danger 
ous  region,  where  there  were  no  Tories  to  befriend 
him.  One  of  his  best  partisan  commanders,  Major 
Ferguson,  penetrated  too  far  into  the  B(lttleof 
mountains.  The  backwoodsmen  of  Ten-  Joimtam, 
nessee  and  Kentucky,  the  Carolinas,  and  Oct>  7' im 
western  Virginia  were  aroused ;  and  under  their 
superb  partisan  leaders  —  Shelby,  Sevier,  Cleave- 
land,  McDowell,  Campbell,  and  Williams — gave 


172  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

chase  to  Ferguson,  who  took  refuge  upon  what  he 
deemed  an  impregnable  position  on  the  top  of 
King's  Mountain.  On  the  7th  of  October  the 
backwoodsmen  stormed  the  mountain,  Ferguson 
was  shot  through  the  heart,  400  of  his  men  were 
killed  and  wounded,  and  all  the  rest,  700  in  num 
ber,  surrendered  at  discretion.  The  Americans 
lost  28  killed  and  60  wounded.  There  were  some 
points  in  this  battle,  which  remind  one  of  the 
British  defeat  at  Majuba  Hill  in  southern  Africa 
in  1881. 

In  the  series  of  events  which  led  to  the  surren 
der  of  Cornwallis,  the  battle  of  King's  Mountain 
played  a  part  similar  to  that  played  by  the  battle 
of  Bennington  in  the  series  of  events  which  led  to 
the  surrender  of  Burgoyne.  It  was  the  enemy's 
first  serious  disaster,  and  its  immediate  result  was 
to  check  his  progress  until  the  Americans  could 
muster  strength  enough  to  overthrow  him.  The 
events,  however,  were  much  more  complicated  in 
Cornwallis's  case,  and  took  much  longer  to  unfold 
themselves.  Burgoyne  surrendered  within  nine 
anxious  weeks  after  Bennington ;  Cornwallis 
maintained  himself,  sometimes  with  fair  hopes  of 
final  victory,  for  a  whole  year  after  King's  Moun 
tain. 

As  soon  as  he  heard  the  news  of  the  disaster 
he  fell  back  to  Winnsborough,  in  South  Carolina, 
and  called  for  reinforcements.  While  they  were 
arriving,  the  American  army,  recruited  and  reor- 


THE  FRENCH  ALLIANCE.  173 

ganized  since  its  crushing  defeat  at  Camden,  ad 
vanced  into  Mecklenburg  county.   Gates 
was  superseded  by  Greene,  who  arrived  command  in 


Greene  takes 
command  in 
South  Caro- 


upon  the  scene  on  the  2d  of  December, 
Under  Greene  were  three  Virginians 
of  remarkable  ability,  —  Daniel  Morgan  ;  William 
Washington,  who  was  a  distant  cousin  of  the 
commander-in-chief  ;  and  Henry  Lee,  familiarly 
known  as  "  Light-horse  Harry,"  father  of  the 
great  general,  Robert  Edward  Lee.  The  little 
army  numbered  only  2000  men,  but  a  considerable 
part  of  them  were  disciplined  veterans  fully  a 
match  for  the  British  infantry. 

In  order  to  raise  troops  in  Virginia  to  increase 
this  little  force,  Steuben  was  sent  down  to  that 
state.  In  order  to  interfere  with  such  recruiting, 
and  to  make  diversions  in  aid  of  Cornwallis,  de- 
tacliments  from  the  British  army  were  also  sent 
by  sea  from  New  York  to  Virginia.  The  first  of 
these  detachments,  under  General  Leslie,  had 
been  obliged  to  keep  on  to  South  Carolina,  to 
make  good  the  loss  inflicted  upon  Cornwallis  at 
King's  Mountain.  To  replace  Leslie  in  Virginia, 
the  traitor  Arnold  was  sent  down  from  New  York. 
The  presence  of  these  subsidiary  forces  in  Vir 
ginia  was  soon  to  influence  in  a  decisive  way  the 
course  of  events. 

Greene,  on  reaching  South  Carolina,  acted  with 
boldness  and  originality.  He  divided  his  little 
army  into  two  bodies,  one  of  which  cooperated 


174  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

with  Marion's  partisans  in  the  northeastern  part 
of  the  state,  and  threatened  Cornwallis's  commu 
nications  with  the  coast.  The  other  body  he  sent 
under  Morgan  to  the  southwestward,  to  threaten 
the  inland  posts  and  their  garrisons.  Thus  wor 
ried  on  both  flanks,  Cornwallis  presently  divided 
his  own  force,  sending  Tarletonwith  1100  men,  to 
Battle  of  the  dispose  of  Morgan.  Tarleton  came  up 
ja7PiT'  with  Morgan  on  the  17th  of  January, 
1781,  at  a  grazing-ground  known  as  the 
Cowpens,  not  far  from  King's  Mountain.  The 
battle  which  ensued  was  well  fought,  and  on  Mor 
gan's  part  it  was  a  wonderful  piece  of  tactics. 
With  only  900  men  in  open  field  he  surrounded 
and  nearly  annihilated  a  superior  force.  The 
British  lost  230  in  killed  and  wounded,  600  pris 
oners,  and  all  their  guns.  Tarleton  escaped  with 
270  men.  The  Americans  lost  12  killed  and  61 
wounded. 

The  two  battles,  King's  Mountain  and  the  Cow- 
pens,  deprived  Cornwallis  of  nearly  all  his  light- 
armed  troops,  and  he  was  just  entering  upon  a 
game  where  swiftness  was  especially  required.  It 
was  his  object  to  intercept  Morgan  and  defeat 
him  before  he  could  effect  a  junction  with  the 
other  part  of  the  American  army.  It  was  Greene's 
object  to  march  the  two  parts  of  his  army  in  con 
verging  directions  northward  across  North  Caro 
lina  and  unite  them  in  spite  of  Cornwallis.  By 
moving  in  this  direction  Greene  was  always  get- 


THE  FRENCH  ALLIANCE.  175 

ting  nearer  to  his  reinforcements  from  Virginia, 
while  Cornwallis  was  always  getting  further  from 
his  supports  in  South  Carolina.     It  was  brilliant 
strategy  on  Greene's  part,  and  entirely  successful. 
Cornwallis  had  to  throw  away  a  great  deal  of  his 
baggage   and  otherwise  weaken   himself,  but  in 
spite  of  all  he  could  do,  he  was  outmarched.    The 
two  wings  of  the  American  army  came  Battle  of 
together  and  were  joined  by  the   rein-  Marches, 
forcements  ;  so  that  at  Guilford  Court  l 
llouse,  on  the  15th  of  March,  Cornwallis  found 
himself  obliged  to  fight  against  heavy  odds,  two 
hundred  miles   from  the  coast  and  almost  as  far 
from  the  nearest  point  in  South  Carolina  at  which 
he  could  get  support. 

The  battle  of  Guilford  was  admirably  managed 
by  both  commanders  and  stubbornly  fought  by  the 
troops.  At  nightfall  the  British  held  the  field, 
with  the  loss  of  nearly  one  third  of  their  number, 
and  the  Americans  were  repulsed.  But  Corn 
wallis  could  not  stay  in  such  a  place,  and  could 
not  afford  to  risk  another  battle.  There  was 
nothing  for  him  to  do  but  retreat  to  Wilmington, 
the  nearest  point  on  the  coast.  There  he  stopped 
and  pondered. 

His  own  force  was  sadly  depleted,  but  he  knew 
that  Arnold  in  Virginia  was  being  heav- 

.  .  °  Cornwallis 

ily  reinforced   from    .New    York.     The   retreats  into 
only  safe  course  seemed  to  march  north 
ward  and  join  in  the  operations  in  Virginia  ;  then 


176  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

afterwards  to  return  southward.  This  course 
Cornwallis  pursued,  arriving  at  Petersburg  and 
taking  command  of  the  troops  there  on  the  20th 
of  May. 

Meanwhile  Greene,  after  pursuing  Cornwallis 
for  about  fifty  miles  from  Guilford,  faced  about 
and  marched  with  all  speed  upon  Camden,  a  hun 
dred  and  sixty  miles  distant.  Whatever  his  ad 
versary  might  do,  he  was  now  going  to  seize  the 
great  prize  of  the  campaign,  and  break  the 
enemy's  hold  upon  South  Carolina.  Lord  Raw- 
don  held  Camden.  Greene  stopped  at  Hobkirk's 
Hill,  two  miles  to  the  north,  and  sent  Marion 
and  Lee  to  take  Fort  Watson,  and  thus  cut  the 
enemy's  communications  with  the  coast.  On 
April  23  Fort  Watson  surrendered  ;  on  the  25th 
Eawdon  defeated  Greene  at  Hobkirk's  Hill,  but 
as  his  communications  were  cut,  the  victory  did 
him  no  good.  He  was  obliged  to  re- 

Greene  takes  ..  ~ 

Camrien^  treat  toward  the  coast,  and  Greene  took 
Camden  on  the  10th  of  May.  Having 
thus  obtained  the  commanding  point,  Greene 
went  on  until  he  had  reduced  every  one  of  the  in- 
Battie  of  land  posts.  At  last  on  the  8th  of  Sep- 
spiSjs,  tember  he  fought  an  obstinate  battle  at 
sept.  8,  i78i.  £utaw  SpringS^  in  whicn  both  sides 

claimed  the  victory.  The  facts  were  that  he  drove 
the  British  from  their  first  position,  but  they  ral 
lied  upon  a  second  position  from  which  he  failed 
to  drive  them.  Here,  however,  as  always  after 


THE  FRENCH  ALLIANCE.  177 

one  of  Greene's  battles,  it  was  the  enemy  who  re 
treated  and  he  who  pursued.  His  strategy  never 
failed.  After  Eutaw  Springs  the  British  remained 
shut  up  in  Charleston  under  cover  of  their  ships, 
and  the  American  government  was  reestablished 
over  South  Carolina.  Among  all  the  campaigns 
in  history  that  have  been  conducted  with  small 
armies,  there  have  been  few,  if  any,  more  brilliant 
than  Greene's. 

There  was  something  especially  piquant  in  the 
way  in  which  after  Guilford  he  left  Cornwallis 
to  himself.  It  reminds  one  of  a  chess-player  who 
first  gets  the  queen  off  the  board,  where  she  can 
do  no  harm,  and  then  wins  the  game  against  the 
smaller  pieces.  As  for  Cornwallis,  when 
he  reached  Petersburg,  May  20,  he 
found  himself  at  the  head  of  5000  men. 
Arnold  had  just  been  recalled  to  New 
York,  and  Lafayette,  who  had  been  sent  down  to 
oppose  him,  was  at  Richmond  with  3000  men.  A 
campaign  of  nine  weeks  ensued,  in  the  first  part 
of  which  Cornwallis  tried  to  catch  Lafayette  and 
bring  him  to  battle.  The  general  movement  was 
from  Richmond  up  to  Fredericksburg,  then  over 
toward  Charlottesville,  then  back  to  the  James 
river,  then  down  the  north  bank  of  the  river. 
But  during  the  last  part  the  tables  were  turned, 
and  it  was  Lafayette,  reinforced  by  Wayne  and 
Steuben,  that  pursued  Cornwallis  on  his  retreat  to 
the  coast.  At  the  end  of  July  the  British  general 


178  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

reached  Yorktown,  where  he  was  reinforced  and 
waited  with  7000  men. 

We  may  now  change  our  simile,  and  liken  Corn- 
wallis  to  a  ball  between  two  bats.  The  first  bat, 
which  had  knocked  him  up  into  Virginia,  was 
Greene ;  the  second,  which  sent  him  quite  out  of 
the  game,  was  Washington.  The  remarkable 
movement  which  the  latter  general  now  proceeded 
to  execute  would  have  been  impossible  without 
French  cooperation.  A  French  fleet  of  overwhelm 
ing  power,  under  the  Count  de  Grasse,  was  ap 
proaching  Chesapeake  bay.  Washing- 

Washington's    *  .  3  ^  J  & 

masterly         ton,  in  readiness  for  it,  had  first  moved 

mo  ve  nient . 

Rochambeau's  army  from  Rhode  Island 
across  Connecticut  to  the  Hudson  river.  Then, 
as  soon  as  all  the  elements  of  the  situation  were 
disclosed,  he  left  part  of  his  force  in  position  oil 
the  Hudson,  and  in  a  superb  march  led  the  rest 
down  to  Virginia.  Sir  Henry  Clinton  at  New 
York  was  completely  hoodwinked.  He  feared  that 
the  real  aim  of  the  French  fleet  was  New  York, 
in  which  case  it  would  be  natural  that  an  Amer 
ican  land-force  should  meet  it  at  Staten  island. 
Now  a  glance  at  the  map  of  New  Jersey  will 
show  that  Washington's  army,  starting  from  West 
Point,  could  march  more  than  half  the  way  toward 
Philadelphia  and  still  be  supposed  to  be  aiming  at 
Staten  island.  Washington  was  a  master  hand 
for  secrecy.  When  his  movement  was  first  dis 
closed,  his  own  generals,  as  well  as  Sir  Henry 


THE  FRENCH  ALLIANCE.  179 

Clinton,  took  it  for  granted  that  Staten  island 
was  the  point  aimed  at.  It  was  not  until  he  had 
passed  Philadelphia  that  Clinton  began  to  surmise 
that  he  might  be  going  down  to  Virginia. 

When  this  fact  at  length  dawned  upon  the  Brit 
ish  commander,  he  made  a  futile  attempt  at  a  diver 
sion  by  sending  Benedict  Arnold  to  attack  New 
London.  It  was  as  weak  as  the  act  of  a  drowning 
man  who  catches  at  a  straw.  Arnold's  expedition, 
cruel  and  useless  as  it  was,  crowned  his  infamy. 
A  sad  plight  for  a  man  of  his  power !  If  he  had 
only  had  more  strength  of  character,  he  might  now 
have  been  marching  with  his  old  friend  Washing 
ton  to  victory.  With  this  wretched  affair  at  New 
London,  the  brilliant  and  wicked  Benedict  Arnold 
disappears  from  American  history.  He  died  in 
London,  in  1801,  a  broken-hearted  and  penitent 
man,  as  his  grandchildren  tell  us,  praying  God 
with  his  last  breath  to  forgive  his  awful  crime. 

O 

Washington's  march  was  so  swift  and  so  cun 
ningly  planned  that  nothing  could  check  it.  On 
the  26th  of  September  the  situation  was  complete. 
Washington  had  added  his  force  to  that  of  La 
fayette,  so  that  10,000  men  blockaded  Corn  wall  is 
upon  the  Yorktown  peninsula.  The  great  French 
fleet,  commanding  the  waters  about  Chesapeake 
bay,  closed  in  behind  and  prevented  gurrender  of 
escape.  It  was  a  very  unusual  thing  for  £^town!  at 
the  French  thus  to  get  control  of  the  Oct  19>  178t' 
water  and  defy  the  British  on  their  own  element.  It 


180  THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

was  Washington's  unwearied  vigilance  that,  after 
waiting  long  for  such  a  chance,  had  seized  it  with 
out  a  moment's  delay.  As  soon  as  Cornwallis  was 
thus  caught  between  a  hostile  army  and  a  hostile 
fleet,  the  problem  was  solved.  On  the  19th  of 
October  the  British  army  surrendered.  Washing 
ton  presently  marched  his  army  back  to  the  Hud 
son  and  made  his  headquarters  at  Newburgh. 

When  Lord  North  at  his  office  in  London  heard 
the  dismal  news,  he  walked  up  and  down  the  room, 
wringing  his  hands  and  crying,  "  O  God,  it  is  all 
over !  "  Yorktown  was  indeed  decisive.  In  the 
course  of  the  winter  the  British  lost  Georgia. 
The  embers  of  Indian  warfare  still  smouldered  on 
the  border,  but  the  great  War  for  Independence 

was  really  at  an  end.  The  king's  friends 
George  m. '8  had  for  some  time  been  losing  strength 
schemes,  in  England,  and  Yorktown  completed 

their  defeat.  In  March,  1782,  Lord 
North's  ministry  resigned.  A  succession  of  short 
lived  ministries  followed ;  first,  Lord  Rocking- 
ham's,  until  July,  1782 ;  then  Lord  Shelburne's, 
until  February,  1783  ;  then,  after  five  weeks  with 
out  a  government,  there  came  into  power  the 
strange  Coalition  between  Fox  and  North,  from 
April  to  December.  During  these  two  years  the 
king  was  trying  to  intrigue  with  one  interest 
against  another  so  as  to  maintain  his  own  personal 
government.  With  this  end  in  view  he  tried  the 
bold  experiment  of  dismissing  the  Coalition  and 


THE  FRENCH  ALLIANCE.  181 

making  the  young  William  Pitt  prime  minister, 
without  a  majority  in  Parliament.  After  a  fierce 
constitutional  struggle,  which  lasted  all  winter, 
Pitt  dissolved  Parliament,  and  in  the  new  election 
in  May,  1784,  obtained  the  greatest  majority  ever 
given  to  an  English  minister.  But  the  victory 
was  Pitt's  and  the  people's,  not  the  king's.  This 
election  of  1784  overthrew  all  the  cherished  plans 
of  George  III.  in  pursuance  of  which  he  had 
driven  the  American  colonies  into  rebellion.  It 
established  cabinet  government  more  firmly  than 
ever,  so  that  for  the  next  seventeen  years  the  real 
ruler  of  Great  Britain  was  William  Pitt. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

BIRTH    OF   THE  NATION. 

THE  year  1782  was  marked  by  great  victories 
for  the  British  in  the  West  Indies  and  at  Gib 
raltar.  But  they  did  not  alter  the  situation  in 
America.  The  treaty  of  peace  by  which 
peace,  1782-  Great  Britain  acknowledged  the  inde 
pendence  of  the  United  States  was  made 
under  Lord  Shelburne's  ministry  in  the  autumn 
of  1782,  and  adopted  and  signed  by  the  Coalition 
on  the  3d  of  September,  1783.  The  negotiations 
were  carried  on  at  Paris  by  Franklin,  Jay,  and 
John  Adams,  on  the  part  of  the  Americans ;  and 
they  won  a  diplomatic  victory  in  securing  for  the 
United  States  the  country  between  the  Alleghany 
mountains  and  the  Mississippi  river.  This  was 
done  against  the  wishes  of  the  French  govern 
ment,  which  did  not  wish  to  see  the  United  States 
become  too  powerful.  At  the  same  time  Spain 
recovered  Minorca  and  the  Floridas.  France  got 
very  little  except  the  satisfaction  of  having  helped 
in  diminishing  the  British  empire. 

The  return  of  peace  did  not  bring  contentment 
to  the  Americans.  Because  Congress  had  no 
means  of  raising  a  revenue  or  enforcing  its  de- 


BIRTH   OF   THE  NATION.  183 

crees,  it  was  unable  to  make  itself  respected  either 
at  home  or  abroad.  For  want  of  pay  the  army 
became  very  troublesome.  In  January,  1781,  there 
had  been  a  mutiny  of  Pennsylvania  and  New 
Jersey  troops  which  at  one  moment 

'  .  .  Troubles  with 

looked  very  serious.  In  the  spring  ot  the  army, 
1782  some  of  the  officers,  disgusted  with 
the  want  of  efficiency  in  the  government,  seem  to 
have  entertained  a  scheme  for  making  Washing 
ton  king ;  but  Washington  met  the  suggestion 
with  a  stern  rebuke.  In  March,  1783,  inflamma 
tory  appeals  were  made  to  the  officers  at  the  head 
quarters  of  the  army  at  Newburgh.  It  seems  to 
have  been  intended  that  the  army  should  overawe 
Congress  and  seize  upon  the  government  until  the 
delinquent  states  should  contribute  the  money 
needed  for  satisfying  the  soldiers  and  other  public 
creditors.  Gates  either  originated  this  scheme  or 
willingly  lent  himself  to  it,  but  an  eloquent  speech 
from  Washington  prevailed  upon  the  officers  to 
reject  and  condemn  it. 

On  the  19th  of  April,  1783,  the  eighth  anni 
versary  of  Lexington,  the  cessation  of  hostilities 
was  formally  proclaimed,  and  the  soldiers  were 
allowed  to  go  home  on  furloughs.  The  army  was 
virtually  disbanded.  There  were  some  who  thought 
that  this  ought  not  to  be  done  while  the  British 
forces  still  remained  in  New  York ;  but  Congress 
was  afraid  of  the  army  and  quite  ready  to  see  it 
scattnvd.  On  the  "21st  of  June  Congress  was 


184  THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

driven  from  Philadelphia  by  a  small  band  of 
drunken  soldiers  clamorous  for  pay.  It  was  im 
possible  for  Congress  to  get  money.  Of  the  Con 
tinental  taxes  assessed  in  1783,  only  one  fifth  part 
had  been  paid  by  the  middle  of  1785.  After 
peace  was  made,  France  had  no  longer  any  end  to 
gain  by  lending  us  money,  and  European  bankers, 
as  well  as  European  governments,  regarded  Amer 
ican  credit  as  dead. 

There  was  a  double  provision  of  the  treaty  which 

could  not  be  carried  out  because  of  the  weakness 

of  Congress.     It  had  been  agreed  that  Congress 

should  request  the  state  governments  to 

Congress  un-  i  •   i      i 

able  to  fulfil    repeal  various  laws  which  they  had  made 

the  treaty.          „  .  .  .  , 

from  time  to  time  confiscating  the  prop 
erty  of  Tories  and  hindering  the  collection  of 
private  debts  due  from  American  to  British  mer 
chants.  Congress  did  make  such  a  request,  but  it 
was  not  heeded.  The  laws  hindering  the  payment 
of  debts  were  not  repealed  ;  and  as  for  the  Tories, 
they  were  so  badly  treated  that  between  1783  and 
1785  more  than  100,000  left  the  country.  Those 
from  the  southern  states  went  mostly  to  Florida 
and  the  Bahamas  ;  those  from  the  north  made 
the  beginnings  of  the  Canadian  states  of  Ontario 
and  New  Brunswick.  A  good  many  of  them  were 
reimbursed  for  their  losses  by  Parliament. 

When  the  British  government  saw  that  these 
provisions  of  the  treaty  were  not  fulfilled,  it  re 
taliated  by  refusing  to  withdraw  its  troops  from 


BIRTH  OF  THE  NATION.  185 

the  northern  and  western  frontier  posts.  The 
British  army  sailed  from  Charleston  on  Great  Britain 
the  14th  of  December,  1782,  and  from 
New  York  on  the  25th  of  November, 
1783,  but  in  contravention  of  the  treaty 
small  garrisons  remained  at  Ogdens-  l 
burgh,  Oswego,  Niagara,  Erie,  Sandusky,  Detroit, 
and  Mackinaw  until  the  1st  of  June,  1796.  Be 
sides  this,  laws  were  passed  which  bore  very  se 
verely  upon  American  commerce,  and  the  Amer 
icans  found  it  impossible  to  retaliate  because  the 
different  states  would  not  agree  upon  any  com 
mercial  policy  in  common.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  states  began  making  commercial  war  upon 
each  other,  with  navigation  laws  and  high  tariffs. 
Such  laws  were  passed  by  New  York  to  interfere 
with  the  trade  of  Connecticut,  and  the  merchants 
of  the  latter  state  began  to  hold  meetings  and 
pass  resolutions  forbidding  all  trade  whatever  with 
New  York. 

The  old  quarrels  about  territory  were  kept  up, 
and  in  1784  the  troubles  in  Wyoming  and  in  the 
Green  Mountains  came  to  the  very  verge  of  civil 
war.  People  in  Europe,  hearing  of  such  things, 
believed  that  the  Union  would  soon  fall  to  pieces 
and  become  the  prey  of  foreign  powers.  It  was 
disorder  and  calamity  of  this  sort  that  such  men 
as  Hutchinson  had  feared,  in  case  the  control  of 
Great  Britain  over  the  colonies  should  cease. 
George  III.  looked  upon  it  all  with  satisfaction, 


186  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

and  believed  that  before  long  the  states  would 
one  after  another  become  repentant  and  beg  to  be 
taken  back  into  the  British  empire. 

The  troubles  reached  their  climax  in  1786.    Be 
cause  there  seemed  to  be  no  other  way  of  getting 
money,  the  different  states  began  to  issue 

The  craze  for      ..  .  1  . 

paper  money    their  promissory  notes,  and  then  tried 

and  the  Shays  J 

rebellion,        to  compel  people  by  law  to  receive  such 

1786.  J 

notes  as  money.  There  was  a  strong 
"  paper  money "  party  in  all  the  states  except 
Connecticut  and  Delaware.  The  most  serious 
trouble  was  in  Rhode  Island  and  Massachusetts. 
In  both  states  the  farmers  had  been  much  im 
poverished  by  the  war.  Many  farms  were  mort 
gaged,  and  now  and  then  one  was  sold  to  satisfy 
creditors.  The  farmers  accordingly  clamoured  for 
paper  money,  but  the  merchants  in  towns  like 
Boston  or  Providence,  understanding  more  about 
commerce,  were  opposed  to  any  such  miserable 
makeshifts.  In  Rhode  Island  the  farmers  pre 
vailed.  Paper  money  was  issued,  and  harsh  laws 
were  passed  against  all  who  should  refuse  to  take 
it  at  its  face  value.  The  merchants  refused,  and 
in  the  towns  nearly  all  business  was  stopped  dur 
ing  the  summer  of  1786. 

In  the  Massachusetts  legislature  the  paper 
money  party  was  defeated.  There  was  a  great 
outcry  among  the  farmers  against  merchants  and 
lawyers,  and  some  were  heard  to  maintain  that 
the  time  had  come  for  wiping  out  all  debts.  In 


BIRTH  OF  THE  X  ATI  ON.  187 

August,  1786,  the  malcontents  rose  in  rebellion, 
headed  by  one  Daniel  Shays,  who  had  been  a  cap 
tain  in  the  Continental  army.  They  began  by 
trying  to  prevent  the  courts  from  sitting,  and 
went  on  to  burn  barns,  plunder  houses,  and  attack 
the  arsenal  at  Springfield.  The  state  troops  were 
called  out,  under  General  Lincoln,  two  or  three 
skirmishes  were  fought,  in  which  a  few  lives  were 
lost,  and  at  length  in  February,  1787,  the  insur 
rection  was  suppressed. 

At  that  time  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  river 
and  the  country  on  its  western  bank  belonged  to 
Spain.  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  were  rapidly  be 
coming  settled  by  people  from  Virginia 

x?  /^i         !•  The  Missis- 

and  iSorth  Carolina,  and  these  settlers  Bippiques- 
wished  to  trade  with  New  Orleans.  The 
Spanish  government  was  unfriendly  and  wished  to 
prevent  such  traffic.  The  people  of  New  Eng 
land  felt  little  interest  in  the  southwestern  country 
or  the  Mississippi  river,  but  were  very  anxious  to 
make  a  commercial  treaty  with  Spain.  The  gov 
ernment  of  Spain  refused  to  make  such  a  treaty 
except  on  condition  that  American  vessels  should 
not  be  allowed  to  descend  the  Mississippi  river 
below  the  mouth  of  the  Yazoo.  When  Congress 
seemed  on  the  point  of  yielding  to  this  demand, 
the  southern  states  were  very  angry.  The  New 
England  states  were  equally  angry  at  what  they 
called  the  obstinacy  of  the  South,  and  threats  of 
secession  were  heard  on  both  sides. 


188  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

Perhaps  the  only  thing  that  kept  the  Union 
from  falling  to  pieces  in  1786  was  the  Northwest 
ern  Territory,  which  George  Rogers  Clark  had 
conquered  in  1779,  and  which  skilful  diplomacy 
had  enabled  us  to  keep  when  the  treaty  was  drawn 
up  in  1782.  Virginia  claimed  this  territory  and 
actually  held  it,  but  New  York,  Massachusetts, 
and  Connecticut  also  had  claims  upon  it.  It  was 
the  idea  of  Maryland  that  such  a  vast  region 
ought  not  to  be  added  to  any  one  state,  or  divided 
between  two  or  three  of  the  states,  but  ought  to 
The  north-  ^e  ^e  common  property  of  the  Union. 
ritoSTtS"  Maryland  had  refused  to  ratify  the  Ar- 
domanitional  ,ticles  of  Confederation  until  the  four 
states  that  claimed  the  northwestern 
territory  should  yield  their  claims  to  the  United 
States.  This  was  done  between  1780  and  1785, 
and  thus  for  the  first  time  the  United  States  gov 
ernment  was  put  in  possession  of  valuable  prop 
erty  which  could  be  made  to  yield  an  income  and 
pay  debts.  This  piece  of  property  was  about  the 
first  thing  in  which  all  the  American  people  were 
alike  interested,  after  they  had  won  their  inde 
pendence.  It  could  be  opened  to  immigration  and 
made  to  pay  the  whole  cost  of  the  war  and  much 
more.  During  these  troubled  years  Congress  was 
busy  with  plans  for  organizing  this  territory, 
which  at  length  resulted  in  the  famous  Ordinance 
of  1787  laying  down  fundamental  laws  for  the 
government  of  what  has  since  developed  into  the 


BIRTH   OF  THE  NATION,  189 

five  great  states  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michi 
gan,  and  Wisconsin.  While  other  questions 
tended  to  break  up  the  Union,  the  questions  that 
arose  in  connection  with  this  work  tended  to  hold 
it  together. 

The  need  for  easy  means  of  communication  be 
tween  the  old  Atlantic  states  and  this  new  coun 
try  behind  the  mountains  led  to  schemes  which 
ripened  in  course  of  time  into  the  construction  of 
the  Chesapeake  and  Ohio  and  the  Erie  canals. 
In  discussing  such  schemes,  Maryland  and  Vir 
ginia  found  it  necessary  to  agree  upon  some  kind 
of  commercial  policy  to  be  pursued  by  both  states. 
Then  it  was  thought  best  to  seize  the  occasion  for 
calling  a  general  convention  of  the  states  to  de 
cide  upon  a  uniform  system  of  regula- 

-  rp,  •  ,.  The  conven 

tions   tor   commerce.       ihis   convention   tionatAn- 

c~\  i  napolis, 

was  held    at   Annapolis    in  September,   Sept.  n, 
1786,  but  only  five  states  had  sent  del 
egates,  and    so   the   convention  adjourned   after 
adopting  an  address  written  by  Alexander  Ham 
ilton,   calling  for  another  convention  to  meet  at 
Philadelphia  on  the  second  Monday  of  the  follow 
ing  May,  "  to  devise  such  further  provisions   as 
shall  appear  necessary  to  render  the  constitution 
of  the  federal  government  adequate  to  the  exigen 
cies  of  the  Union." 

The  Shays  rebellion  and  the  quarrel  about  the 
Mississippi  river  had  by  this  time  alarmed  people 
so  that  it  began  to  be  generally  admitted  that  the 


190  THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

federal  government  must  be  in  some  way  strength 
ened.  If  there  were  any  doubt  as  to  this,  it  was 
removed  by  the  action  of  New  York.  An  amend 
ment  to  the  Articles  of  Confederation  had  been 
proposed,  giving  Congress  the  power  of  levying 
customs-duties  and  appointing  the  collectors.  By 
the  summer  of  1786  all  the  states  except  New 
York  had  consented  to  this.  But  in  order  to 
amend  the  articles,  unanimous  consent  was  neces 
sary,  and  in  February,  1787,  New  York's  refusal 
defeated  the  amendment.  Congress  was  thus 
left  without  any  immediate  means  of  raising  a 
revenue,  and  it  became  quite  clear  that  something 
must  be  done  without  delay. 

The  famous  Federal  Convention  met  at  Phila 
delphia  in  May,  1787,  and  remained  in   session 
four    months,  with  Washington    presiding.      Its 
work  was  the  framing  of  the  government  under 
which  we  are  now  living,  and  in  which 
the  evils  of  the  old  confederation  have 


phia,  May-  been  avoided.  The  trouble  had  all  the 
while  been  how  to  get  the  whole  Ameri 
can  people  represented  in  some  body  that  could 
thus  rightfully  tax  the  whole  American  people. 
This  was  the  question  which  the  Albany  Congress 
had  tried  to  settle  in  1754,  and  which  the  Federal 
Convention  did  settle  in  1787. 

In  the  old  confederation,  starting  with  the  Con 
tinental  Congress  in  1774,  the  government  was  all 
vested  in  a  single  body  which  represented  states, 


BIRTH   OF   THE  NATION.  191 

but  did  not  represent  individual  persons.  It  was 
for  that  reason  that  it  was  called  a  congress  rather 
than  a  parliament.  It  was  more  like  a  congress 
of  European  states  than  the  legislative  body  of  a 
nation,  such  as  the  English  parliament  was.  It 
had  no  executive  and  no  judiciary.  It  could  not 
tax,  and  it  could  not  enforce  its  decrees. 

The  new  constitution  changed  all  this  by  creat 
ing  the  House  of  Representatives  which  The  nev 
stood  in  the  same  relation  to  the  whole 
American  people  as  the  legislative  as-  ^ 
sembly  of  each  single  state  to  the  people  matod*  17i 
of  that  state.  In  this  body  the  people  were  repre 
sented,  and  could  therefore  tax  themselves.  At 
the  same  time  in  the  Senate  the  old  equality  be 
tween  the  states  was  preserved.  All  control  over 
commerce,  currency,  and  finance  was  lodged  in 
this  new  Congress,  and  absolute  free  trade  was 
established  between  the  states.  In  the  office  of 
President  a  strong  executive  was  created.  And 
besides  all  this  there  was  a  system  of  federal 
courts  for  deciding  questions  arising  under  fed 
eral  laws.  Most  remarkable  of  all,  in  some  re 
spects,  was  the  power  given  to  the  federal  Su 
preme  Court,  of  deciding,  in  special  cases,  whether 
laws  passed  by  the  several  states,  or  by  Congress 
itself,  were  conformable  to  the  Federal  Constitu 
tion. 

Many  men  of  great  and  various  powers  played 
important  parts  in   effecting  this  change  of  gov- 


192  THE  WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

eminent  which  at  length  established  the  American 
Union  in  such  a  form  that  it  could  endure  ;  but 
the  three  who  stood  foremost  in  the  work  were 
George  Washington,  James  Madison,  and  Alex 
ander  Hamilton.  Two  other  men,  whose  most 
important  work  came  somewhat  later,  must  be 
mentioned  along  with  these,  for  the  sake  of  com 
pleteness.  It  was  John  Marshall,  chief  justice  of 
the  United  States  from  1801  to  1835,  whose  pro 
found  decisions  did  more  than  those  of  any  later 
judge  could  ever  do  toward  establishing  the  sense 
in  which  the  Constitution  must  be  understood. 
It  was  Thomas  Jefferson,  president  of  the  United 
States  from  1801  to  1809,  whose  sound  democratic 
instincts  and  robust  political  philosophy  prevented 
the  federal  government  from  becoming  too  closely 
allied  with  the  interests  of  particular  classes,  and 
helped  to  make  it  what  it  should  be,  —  a  "  govern 
ment  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the 
people."  In  the  making  of  the  government  under 
which  we  live,  these  five  names  —  Washington, 
Madison,  Hamilton,  Jefferson,  and  Marshall  — 
stand  before  all  others.  I  mention  them  here 
chronologically,  in  the  order  of  the  times  at  which 
their  influence  was  felt  at  its  maximum. 

When  the  work  of  the  Federal  Convention  was 
sanctioned  by  the  Continental  Congress  and  laid 
before  the  people  of  the  several  states,  to  be  rati 
fied  by  special  conventions  in  each  state,  there  was 
earnest  and  sometimes  bitter  discussion.  Many 


BIRTH   OF  THE  X  ATI  OX.  193 

people  feared  that  the  new  government  would 
soon  degenerate  into  a  tyranny.  But  the  century 
and  a  half  of  American  history  that  had  already 
elapsed  had  afforded  such  noble  political  training 
for  the  people  that  the  discussion  was,  on  the 
whole,  more  reasonable  and  more  fruitful  than 
any  that  had  ever  before  been  undertaken  by  so 
many  men.  The  result  was  the  adoption  of  the 
Federal  Constitution,  followed  by  the  inaugura 
tion  of  George  Washington,  on  the  30th  of  April, 
1789,  as  President  of  the  United  States.  And 
with  this  event  our  brief  story  may  fitly  end. 


COLLATERAL   READING. 


THE  following  books  may  be  recommended  to  the  reader 
who  wishes  to  get  a  general  idea  of  the  American  Revolu 
tion  :  — 

1.  GENERAL  WORKS.     By  far  the  most  interesting  and 
readable  account  is  given  by  Irving  in  his  Life  of  Wash 
ington^  vols.  i.-iv.     I  have  abridged  and  condensed  these 
four  octavos  into  one  stout  duodecimo  entitled  Washington 
and  his   Country,  Boston,  Ginu  &  Co.,  1887.     Our  young 
friends  may  find  Frothingham's  Rise  of  the  Republic  rather 
close  reading,  but  one  can  hardly  name  a  book  that  will 
more  richly  reward  them  for  their  study.     Greene's  His 
torical  View  of  the  Revolution  should  be  read  by  every  one. 
Carriugton's  Battles  of  the  Revolution  makes  the  military 
operations  quite  clear  with  numerous  maps.     Very  young 
readers  find  it  interesting  to  begin  with  Coffin's  Boys  of 
Seventy-Six.     The  social  life  of  the  time  is  admirably  por 
trayed  in  Scudder's  Men  and  Manners  in  America  One  Hun 
dred  Years  Ago.     See  also  Thornton's  Pulpit  of  the  Revolu 
tion.     Lossing's  Field  Book  of  the  Revolution  —  two  royal 
octavos    profusely    illustrated  —  is   an    excellent    book  to 
browse  in. 

2.  BIOGRAPHIES.     Tyler's  Patrick  Henry,  Tudor's   Otis, 
Hosmer's   Samuel  Adams,  Morse's  John  Adams,  Frothing 
ham's  Warren,  Quincy's  Joxiah   Quincy,  Parton's  Franklin 
and  Jefferson,  Fonblanque's   Burgoyne,  Lossing's  Schuyler, 
Riedesel's  Memoirs,  Stone's   Brant,  Arnold's  Arnold,  Sar 
gent's  Andre\  Kapp's  Steuhen  and  Kalh,  Greene's  Greene, 


196  COLLATERAL  READING. 

Amory's  Sullivan,  Graham's  Morgan,  Simms's  Marion, 
Abbott's  Paul  Jones,  John  Adams's  Letters  to  his  Wife, 
Morse's  Hamilton,  Gay's  Madison,  Roosevelt's  Gouverneur 
Morris,  Russell's  Fox,  Albemarle's  Rockinyham,  Fitzmau- 
rice's  Shelburne,  MacKnight's  Burke,  Macaulay's  essay  on 
Chatham. 

3.  FICTION.  Cooper's  Chainbearer,  Miss  Sedgwick's 
Linwoods,  Paulding's  Old  Continental,  Mrs.  Child's  Rebels, 
Motley's  Morton's  Hope.  There  is  an  account  of  the  battle 
of  Bunker  Hill  in  Cooper's  Lionel  Lincoln.  Thompson's 
Green  Mountain  Boys  gives  interesting  descriptions  of  many 
of  the  events  in  that  region.  The  border  warfare  is  treated 
in  Grace  Greenwood's  Forest  Tragedy  and  Hoffman's  Grey- 
slaer.  Simms's  Partisan  and  Mellichampe  deal  with  events 
in  South  Carolina  in  1780,  and  later  events  are  covered  in 
his  Scout,  Katharine  Walford,  Woodcraft,  Forayers,  and 
Eutaw.  See  also  Miss  Sedgwick's  Walter  Thornley,  and 
Cooper's  Pilot  and  Spy. 

For  further  references,  see  Justin  Winsor's  Reader's 
Handbook  of  the  American  Revolution,  a  book  which  is  ab 
solutely  indispensable  to  every  one  who  wishes  to  study  the 
subject. 


INDEX. 


ADAMS,  JOHN,  46,  84,  88,  89,  98,  100, 
113,149,  182. 

Adams,  Samuel,  53,  58,  68,  71,  72,  73, 
75,  78,  82,  84,  85,  88,  107,  149. 

Aix-la-Chapelle,  treaty  of,  6. 

Albany  Congress,  34,  190. 

Albany  Plan,  35. 

Algonquins,  28-30,  37. 

Alleghany  mountains,  27. 

Allen,  Ethan,  87. 

AndnS  John,  170,  171. 

Andros,  Sir  Edmund,  22. 

Annapolis  convention,  189. 

Antislavery  feeling,  126. 

Armada,  the  Invincible,  6. 

Armed  Neutrality,  159. 

Army,  continental,  88,  124  ;  dis 
banded,  183. 

Arnold,  Benedict,  87,  93,  94, 118, 136, 
137,  143,  167-171,  173,  175,  177, 
179. 

Ashe,  Samuel,  163. 

Attucks,  Crispus,  75. 

Augusta,  Ga.,  163. 

Bacon's  rebellion,  21. 

Baltimore,  Congress  flees  to.  118, 

Burons'  War,  19. 

Barn*,  Isaac,  69,  75. 

Barter,  162. 

Bauin,  Col.,  134. 

Bemis  Heights,  143. 

Bennington,  133,  134,  137,  172. 

Berkeley,  Sir  W.,  21. 

Bernard,  Sir  F.,  68,  72. 

Boston,  7,  44-47  ;   "  Massacre,"  72- 

75  ;  '*  Tea  Party,"  79-83 ;  Port  Bill, 

83  ;  siege  of,  87-94. 
Braddock,  Edward,  36. 
Brandywine,  141. 
Brant,  Joseph,    108,    135,   136,    154, 

155. 

Breymann,  Col.,  134. 
Briar  Creek,  163. 
Brooklyn  Heights,  111-113,  128. 
Bunker  Hill,  91,  128. 
Burgoyne,  John,    90,   125-134,    137, 

140-143,  148,  150,  158,  172. 


Burlington,  N.  J.,  120. 
Burke,  Edmund,  62,  69. 
Butler,  Col.  John,  134,  154. 
Butt's  Hill.  154. 
Byron,  Admiral,  150. 

Cahokia,  156. 

Calvert  family,  13. 

Camden,  Lord,  69. 

Camden,  S.  C.,  166,  171,  173,  176. 

Campbell,  Col.  William,  171. 

Canada,  invasion  of,  93,  94. 

Canals,  189. 

Carleton,  Sir  Guy,  93,  94,  109,  115, 

118. 

Carlisle,  Pa.,  26. 
Carr,  Dabney,  79. 
Castle  William,  73,  75. 
Caudine  Fork,  144. 
Cavaliers,  9. 

Cavendish,  Lord  John,  69. 
Charles  II.,  22,  43,  45. 
Charleston,  S.  C.,  80,  165. 
Charlestown,  Mass.,  86. 
Chase,  Samuel,  84. 
Cherry  Valley,  154. 
Choiseul,  Duke  de,  38. 
Clark,  George  Rogers,  156,  188. 
Cleaveland,  Col.,  171. 
Cleveland,  Grover,  1. 
Clinton,  Sir  H.,  90,  96,  140,  142,  150- 

152,  156-158,  164,  1G5,  178,  179. 
Coalition  ministry,  180. 
Cobden,  Richard,  61. 
Colonial  trade,  42-44. 
Committees  of  correspondence,  79. 
Commons,  House  of,  19,  58-61. 
Concord,  85,  86. 
Congress,  Continental,  79,  84,  87-90, 

100-103,  106,  115-117,  161,  162, 183, 

184,  191. 

Congress,  Stamp  Act,  56. 
Connecticut,  13,  21,  23,  77,  98,  156. 
Conway,  Henry,  09. 
Conway  Cabal,  148,  149. 
Cornwallis,  Lord,  104,  121,  122,  16o, 

171-180. 
Cowpens,  174. 


198 


INDEX. 


Cromwell,  Oliver,  9. 

Crown  Point,  87. 

Currency,  Continental,  162,  166. 

Deane,  Silas,  123. 

Declaration  of  Independence,  97-103, 

Declaratory  Act,  58. 

Delaware,  9,  10. 

Delaware  river,  142. 

Denmark,  159. 

Desertions,  166. 

D'Estaing,  Count,  151-154,  164. 

Dickinson,  John,  84,  92,  98, 101,  102. 

Discovery,  French  doctrine  of,  27. 

Dorchester  Heights,  94,  128. 

Dunmore,  Lord,  95. 

"  Early  "  American  history,  5. 
Edinburgh,  159. 
Elkton,  140,  141. 
Elmira,  155. 
Eutaw  Springs,  176. 

Fairfield,  Conn.,  156. 

Federal  convention,  190,  191. 

Ferguson,  Major,  171,  172. 

Five  Nations,  29. 

Flamborough  Head,  159. 

Fort  Duquesne,  33;  Edward,  131, 
132,  140;  Lee,  114-11G;  Moultrie, 
105  ;  Necessity,  33 ;  Niagara,  154, 
155;  Stanwix,  135-137;  Washing 
ton,  114-117,  165  ;  Watson,  176. 

Forts  on  the  Delaware,  141. 

Fox,  Charles,  69,  180. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  34,  54,  89,  113, 
123,  182. 

Franklin,  William,  106. 

Fraser,  Gen.,  131. 

Frederick  the  Great,  150. 

French  power  in  Canada,  10,  20,  26- 
38. 

Frontenac,  Count,  29. 

Frontier  between  English  and  French 
colonies,  26. 

Gage,  Thomas,  39,  83,  85,  91,  92. 

Gansevoort,  Peter,  135. 

Gaspee,  schooner,  77. 

Gates,  Horatio,  39,  90,  130,  131,  137, 
143,  148,  165,  166,  168,  173. 

George  III.,  his  character  and 
schemes,  59-71,  146 ;  glee  over 
news  from  Ticonderoga,  129  ;  tries 
to  make  an  alliance  with  Russia, 
158,  159;  his  schemes  overthrown, 
180,  181. 

Georgia,  11,  96,  163. 

Germaine,  Lord  George,  147,  156, 
166. 

Germantown,  141. 


Gibraltar,  158,  182. 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  61. 

Governments  of  the  colonies,  13-1 G. 

Grasse,  Count  de,  178. 

Green  Mountains,  77,  87,  131,  185. 

Greene,  Nathanael,  90,  115,  116,  167, 

173-177. 
Grenville,    George,    41,   49,  51,   54, 

124. 

Gridley,  Jeremiah,  46. 
Guilford  Court  House,  175,  177. 

Hackensack,  115, 116. 

Hale,  Nathan,  114. 

Hamilton,   commandant  at  Detroit. 

155. 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  189,  192. 
Hancock.  John,  86,  87,  89. 
Harlem  Heights,  114,  129. 
Harrison,  Benjamin,  6. 
Hastings,  Warren,  158. 
Heath,  William,  90,  115. 
Henry  VIII.,  59. 

Henry,  Patrick,  48,  55,  58,  84,  144. 
Herkimer,  Nicholas,  135,  136. 
Hessian  troops,  93. 
Hobkirk's  Hill,  176. 
Holland  and  Great  Britain,  160. 
Hopkins,  Stephen,  77. 
Howe,  Richard,  Lord,  105,  106,  113, 

150,  153. 
Howe,  Sir  William,  39,  90,  94,  104, 

105,  112-118,  125, 127, 137-143, 148, 

150. 

Hubbardton,  131. 

Hudson  river,  95,  115,  128,  157,  170. 
Hutchinson,  Thomas,  46,  56,  72,  75, 

77,  78,  81,  83,  107,  185. 
Hyder,  Ali,  158. 

Impost  amendment  defeated  by  New 

York,  190. 

Indian  tribes,  27,  28. 
Iroquois,  28,  29. 

Jay,  John,  92,  182. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  55,  89,  100,  103. 

126,  127,  192. 
Jeffreys,  George,  17. 
Johnson,  Sir  John,  108,  134. 
Johnson,  Sir  William,  108. 
Johnson  Hall,  26,  108. 
Jones,  David,  133. 
Jones,  Paul,  159,  160. 

Kalb,  John,  38,  123,  165,  166. 
Kaskatkia,  156. 
Kentucky,  155,  171,  187. 
King's  friends,  64,  69,  84. 
King's  Mountain,  171,  172,  174. 
Kirkland,  Samuel,  135. 
Kosciuszko,  Tbaddeus,  123. 


INDEX. 


199 


Lafayette,  123,  177. 

Land  Bank,  20. 

Lee,  Arthur,  123. 

Lee,  Charles,  89,  105,  117-119,   122, 

138,  140,  148,  150-152. 
Lee,  Henry,  173. 
Lee,  Richard  Henry,  84,  97,  100. 
Lee,  Robert  Edward,  173. 
Leslie,  Gen.,  173. 
Leuktra,  144. 
Lexington,  86,  183. 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  126. 
Lincoln,    Benjamin,    131,   134,    143, 

163-165,  167,  187. 
Livingston,  Robert,  84,  98. 
Long  House,  28,  29. 
Long  Island,  battle  of,  112. 
Lords  proprietary,  13. 
Louis  XV.,  31. 

Macaulay,  Lord,  49. 

McCrea,  Jane,  132,  133. 

McDowell,  Col.,  171. 

McNeil,  Mrs.,  132,  133. 

Madison,  James,  192. 

Mahratta  war,  158. 

Majuba  Hill,  172. 

Manchester,  Vt.,  133. 

Marion,  Francis,  165,  174. 

Marshall,  John,  192. 

Martha's  Vineyard,  156, 

Martin,  Josiah,  96. 

Miryland,  8,  99,  140,  188. 

Massachusetts,  21,  22,  68,  71,  72,  83, 

97,  107. 
Mecklenburg  county,  N.  C.,  95,  171, 

173. 

Minden,  147. 
Minisink,  155. 
Minorca,  158,  182. 
Mississippi  valley,  182,  187. 
Mobilians,  27. 
Molasses  Act,  49-51,  67. 
Monk,  Gen.,  169. 
Monmouth,  151,  152. 
Montgomery,  Richard,  90,  93,  94. 
Morgan,  Daniel,  93,  94, 137,  143,  167, 

173,  174. 

Morris,  Robert,  102,  120. 
Morristown,  119,  122,  123. 
Moultrie,  William,  105. 

New  England  colonies,  6-8. 

New  Hampshire,  76,  98. 

New  Haven,  156. 

New  Jersey,  11,  99. 

New  Whigs,  60-62,  69. 

New   York,  9,  66,  76,  80,  100,  108, 

125,  143,  190. 
Newburgh,  180,  183. 
Norfolk,  Va.,  95. 
\orth.  Lord,  66,  76,  144-147,  180. 


North  Carolina,  11,  77,  96,  171-175. 
Northcastle,  115. 
Northwestern  Territory,  188. 
Vilification  of  the  Regulating  Act, 

85. 
Norwalk,  156. 

Ohio,  189. 

Ohio  Company,  32. 

Old  Sarum,  59. 

Old  South  church,  53,  72,  82. 

Old  Whigs,  59-64,  69. 

Otis,  James,  45-47,  62,  72,  74,  144. 

Paper  money,  20, 162,  186. 

Parker,  Sir  Peter,  96,  104. 

Parsons'  Cause,  47,  48. 

Paxton,  Charles,  44. 

Pendleton,  Edmund,  84. 

Penn  family,  14. 

Pennsylvania,  11,  13,  77,  99,  102. 

Pensacola,  158. 

Periods  in  history,  4. 

Petersburg,  Va.,  177. 

Petition  (last)  to  the  king,  92. 

Petty  William  (Earl  of   Shelburne), 

61,  69,  180,  182. 
Philadelphia,   80,    84,   138-142,    151, 

168,  183. 

Pigott,  Sir  Robert,  153. 
Pitt,  William    (Earl    of    Chatham), 

57,  61,  62,  64,  66,  69,  71,  84,  145, 

146. 

Pitt,  William,  the  younger,  61,  181. 
Pontiac's  war,  38,  41. 
Pownall,  Thomas,  14. 
Preston,  Capt.,  74. 
Prevost,  Gen..  103,  164. 
Princeton,  120,  121. 
Proprietary  government,  13. 
Protectionist  legislation.  43,  50. 
Pulaski,  Casimir,  123,  164. 
Putnam,  Israel,  39,  87,  90,  112,  115. 

Rawdon,  Lord,  176. 

Reform,  parliamentary,  61-63. 

Regulating  Act,   83,    85 ;    repealed, 
144. 

Representation  in  England,  58-61. 

Requisitions,  31,  54,  161. 

Retaliatory  acts,  83 ;  repealed,  144. 

Revere,  Paul,  4,  86. 

Rhode  Island,  13,  21,  23,  76,  77,  96, 
153, 154,  164,  166,  186. 

Riedesel,  Gen.,  131. 

Riots  in  Boston,  56. 

Rochambeau,  Count,  166,  178. 

Rockingham,  Lord,  57,  64,  180. 
{  Rodney,  Cnesar,  102. 
:  Rodney,  George,  160. 
'  Rotten  boroughs,  59,  62. 

Royal  governors,  14-18, 


200 


INDEX. 


Russell,  Lord  John,  61. 
Russell,  Lord  William,  17. 
Russia,  159. 

Rutledge,  Edward,  113. 
Rutledge,  John,  84. 

St.  Clair,  Arthur,  131,  167. 

St.  Eustatius,  160. 

St.  Leger,  Barry,  125,  126,  135-137. 

Salaries,  15-18,  G5-C8. 

Savannah,  163,  164. 

Savile,  Sir  George,  69. 

Schuyler,  Philip,  90,  109,  119,  129- 
133,  136. 

Secession,  threats  of,  187. 

Senegambia,  158. 

Sevier,  John,  155,  171. 

Shays  rebellion,  186. 

Shelburne,  Lord,  61,  69, 180,  182. 

Shelby,  Isaac,  171. 

Shirley,  William,  52. 

Sidney,  Algernon,  17. 

Silver  bank,  20. 

Six  Nations,  29,  34,  93,  125. 

Snyder.  Christopher,  74. 

Sons  of  Liberty,  57. 

South  Carolina,  96, 102, 104,  105,  127, 
173-177. 

Spain  declares  war  with  Great  Brit 
ain,  158. 

Spanish  possessions  in  North  Amer 
ica,  37,  158,  182. 

Spotswood,  Alexander,  14. 

Stamp  Act,  4,  41,  52,  58,  124. 

Stark,  John,  39,  87,  134. 

Staten  Island,  109,  117,  122,  139,  178. 

Steuben,  Baron,  123,  150,  173,  177. 

Still  water,  132. 

Stirling,  William  Alexander,  called 
Lord,  112. 

Stony  Point,  156,  157,  163. 

Strachey,  Sir  Henry,  151. 

Stuart  Kings,  17,  60. 

Suffolk  resolves,  85. 

Sullivan,  John,  90,  112,  153-155. 

Sumter,  Thomas,  165. 

Snnbury,  163. 

Supreme  court,  191. 

Sweden,  159. 

Tarleton,  Banastre,  165,  174. 

Taxation,  16-20,  31,  52-54,  62. 

Tea  Party,  Boston,  4,  79-83. 

Tennessee,  155,  171,  187. 

Throg's  Neck,  114. 

Ticonderoga,  87,  118,  125,  127,  128, 
131,  134,  143. 

Tories,  12,  60,  93,  126,  154,  155,  163, 
184. 

Town  meetings,  7,  53. 

Townshend  Acts,  64-68,  76,  78  ;  re 
pealed,  144. 


Treaty  of  peace,  182. 
Tuscaroras,  29. 

Union,  want  of,  34,  77,  161,  162,  182- 
191. 

Valcour,  Island,  118. 
Veuango,  33. 
Vincennes,  156. 

Virginia,  8,  21,  24,  47,  48,  76,  79,  96, 
97,  173. 

Walpole,  Sir  Robert,  31. 

War  expenses,  30-32,  36,  40,  41. 

Ward,  Artemas,  90,  117. 

Warner,  Seth,  87,  131,  134. 

Warren,  Joseph,  85,  86. 

Washington,  George.  1,4,  5,  39,  55  ; 
his  mission  to  Venango,  33 ;  sur 
renders  Fort  Necessity,  33;  in  Vir 
ginia  legislature,  76  ;  in  the  Conti 
nental  Congress,  84  ;  appointed  to 
command  the  army,  88  ;  not  yet  in 
favour  of  independence,  89  ;  takes 
command  at  Cambridge,  92 ;  takes 
Boston,  94 ;  addressed  by  Lord 
Howe,  106  ;  his  character  as  gen 
eral  and  statesman,  110,  111 ;  with 
draws  his  army  from  Brooklyn 
Heights,  113;  masterly  campaign 
in  New  York  and  New  Jersey, 
114-122;  endeavours  to  secure  an 
efficient  regular  army,  123-125; 
campaign  of  June,  1777,  in  New 
Jersey,  139 ;  Brandy  wine  and  Ger- 
mantown,  141,  142  ;  intrigues  of 
his  enemies,  148,  149 ;  Monmouth, 
151,  152  ;  sends  a  force  against  the 
Iroquois,  154,  155  ;  Stony  Point. 
156,  157 ;  his  favourite  generals 
often  ill  used  by  Congress,  167  ;  his 
superb  march  and  capture  of  York- 
town,  178-180  ;  scheme  for  making 
him  king,  183  ;  elected  first  presi 
dent  of  the  United  States,  193. 

Washington,  William,  173. 

Wayne,  Anthony,  157,  177. 

Webster,  Daniel,  101. 

West  Point,  115,  117,  157,  170. 

Western  frontier  posts,  185. 

White  Plains,  115,  129. 

Wildcat  banks,  20. 

William  III.,  45. 

Williams,  James,  171. 

Wilson,  James,  98. 
I  Winchester,  Va.,  26. 

Winnsborough,  S.  C.,  172. 
I  Wright,  Sir  James,  164. 
j  Writs  of  assistance,  44-47. 
I  Wyoming,  77,  154,  185. 

,  Yorktown,  178-180. 


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